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LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CUIFORNU
AN INDIAN PIONEER OF SCIENCE
THE LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
WORKS BY SIR J. C. BOSE.
RESPONSE IN THE LIVING AND NON-LIVING.
With 117 Illustrations. 8vo. 1902.
PLANT RESPONSE : AS A MEANS OF PHYSIO-
LOGICAL INVESTIGATION. With 278 Illus-
trations. 8vo. 1906.
COMPARATIVE ELECTRO - PHYSIOLOGY. A
PHYSICO-PHYSIOLQGJLCAL STUDY. With 406
Illustrations. 8vo. 1907.
RESEARCHES : ON IRRITABILITY OF PLANTS.
With 190 Illustrations. 8vo. 1913.
LIFE MOVEMENTS IN PLANTS. Vol. I. With
92 Illustrations. 8vo. 1918.
LIFE MOVEMENTS IN PLANTS. Vol. II. With
128 Illustrations. 8vo. 1919.
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS
AN INDIAN PIONEER OF SCIENCE
THE LIFE AND WORK
OF
SIR JAGADIS C. ROSE
M.A., D.Sc., LL.D., F.R.S., C.I.E., C.S.I.
EMERITUS PROFESSOR, PRESIDENCY COLLEGE, CALCUTTA
DIRECTOR OF THE BOSE RESEARCH INSTITUTE
PATRICK GEDDES
LATE PROFESSOR OF BOTANY (UNIV. COLL., DUNDEE)
ST. ANDREWS UNIVERSITY, AND PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY
AND CIVICS, UNIVERSITY OF BOMBAY
WITH PORTRAITS
AND
ILLUSTRATIONS
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, E.G. 4
FOURTH AVENUE & BOTH STREET, NEW YORK
BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS
1920
A.
PREFACE
I AM asked whether the title of this book means especially
a pioneer in science, who happens to be an Indian, or a
pioneer of science in and for India. The answer is Both.
For on one hand Bose is the first Indian of modern times who
has done distinguished work in science, and his life-story
is thus at once of interest to his scientific contemporaries
in other countries and of encouragement and impulse to
his countrymen. But it will also be seen, in the general
world of science, independent of race, nationality and
language, which looks only to positive results, that
here is much of pioneering work, and this upon levels
rarely attained, with intercrossing tracks still commonly
held and treated as distinct in physics, in physiology,
both vegetable and animal, and even in psychology.
Pioneering too in all these fields, not in virtue of
mere variety of interests, of mental versatility, and of
inventive faculty of the rarest kind, though all these are
present, but also as guided, inspired, even impassioned, by
an endowment more than usually deep and strong of that
_faith in cosmic order and unity which is the fundamental
concept of each and all the sciences. So it has come
to pass that we have in this single and long solitary worker
' a mind working in long sweeps and attracted alike by
gulfs which separate, and by borderlands which unite/ and
successful to a high and rare degree in such high intel-
lectual adventures. Hence his contributions are from their
very outset towards the unification of whole groups of
phenomena hitherto explored separately. But here is not
vi PREFACE
simply a physicist of fine experimental skill, and of full
subtlety, but also a naturalist of the keenest interest in life-
processes and life-movements, and these among the most per-
plexing and intricate. His special and characteristic lines
of pioneering have thereby arisen. With this dual outlook
and equipment, as physicist he brings to the physio-
logist his intellectual and experimental resources with
fruitful results to knowledge, and henceforth with trans-
formation of laboratories of physiology and their standards
of observation and research by the refinement of his new
methods and appliances. Rarer still, he has not only
divined in matter, as sometimes did physicists before him,
' the promise and potency of life/ but has experimentally
demonstrated, as in seeming inert metals, not only a strangely
life-like passivity to environment, but a yet more life-like
reactivity to it as well.
Here, then, is offered some account of pioneerings in
discovery, and of the type and personality of the pioneer
also. In science we need more and more of both, in the
East no doubt, but in the West likewise. Hence the present
outline of main scientific results and biographic sketch
together.
And though alike in scientific summary and in biog-
raphy the less the writer obtrudes himself the better,
a few words of personal explanation are permissible, even
customary in any preface. Though primarily of biological
interests and trainings, I felt in student days the wonder
and call of the physical sciences, and realised something of
their bearings on physiology. As for some forty years a
teacher and investigator in botany and more of physiological
and evolutionary interests than of traditional ones, I have
constantly felt my limitations in vegetable physiology in
general, and with regard to plant-movements in particular ;
and thus to some extent realised the interest of Bose's
work when I first met him nearly twenty years ago, and
when later I read a volume he sent me. But in the press
of .other work and without actual acquaintance with his
PREFACE vii
new and strange devices and apparatus, the impression
gradually faded. And only in the last two or three years,
in Calcutta and at Darjeeling, have I gradually come to
know more and more of Bose and of his researches, of
his Institute, and of its aims.
All the sciences and all their scientific men are
social products, and must be studied as such in the
sociological way. This book, though originally planned
in its simplest and most direct aspect and purpose
as an exposition of a life-work is thus something of a
sociological study also ; and as such, one of its purposes
that of incentive to encouragement and emancipation
of the student, of science in general, and in India in par-
ticular may be more clear. For here is, at any rate, no
conventional rhapsody on a ' genius/ but an endeavour
to see what may be the conditions favourable to life and
conducive to full mental stature and productivity ; and
what the adverse conditions which may arrest, yet may
also provoke to, their surmounting. And it is this latter
which I wished to make specially clear from the study of
Bose's life, so that others also may be encouraged to face
their difficulties, and to overcome them as far as may be,
towards something greater than merely individual end.
Enough then of preface. Any dedication should be
to those in memory or still with us, who as we shall find
have best helped the hero of this tale upon his life's
adventure. Nor should we forget his old teachers, his
friends and fellow-workers in science, nor yet his assistants
and pupils, by whom his work has also henceforth in-
creasingly to be continued ; nor that active youth of the
Indian Universities to whom it is so largely addressed.
P. G.
JERUSALEM, 1920.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION i
II. COLLEGE DAYS AT CALCUTTA AND IN ENGLAND . 23
III. EARLY STRUGGLES 32
IV. FIRST RESEARCHES IN PHYSICS. ELECTRIC WAVES 45
V. FURTHER PHYSICAL RESEARCH AND ITS APPRECIA-
TION 61
VI. PHYSICAL RESEARCHES CONTINUED. THE THEORY
OF MOLECULAR STRAIN AND ITS INTERPRETATIONS 71
VII. RESPONSE IN THE LIVING AND NON-LIVING . . 86
VIII. HOLIDAYS AND PILGRIMAGES .... 108
IX. PLANT RESPONSE. ...... 120
X. IRRITABILITY OF PLANTS ..... 137
XI. THE AUTOMATIC RECORD OF GROWTH . . . 153
XII. VARIOUS MOVEMENTS IN PLANTS .... 161
XIII. THE RESPONSE OF PLANTS TO WIRELESS STIMU-
LATION ........ 172
XIV. TROPISMS 181
XV. THE SLEEP OF PLANTS . . . . .193
XVI. PSYCHO-PHYSICS 205
XVII. FRIENDSHIPS AND PERSONALITY . . . .217
XVIII. THE DEDICATION 227
XIX. THE BOSE RESEARCH INSTITUTE .... 242
IX
ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATES
SIR J. C. BOSE . . . . . - . . Frontispiece
From a photograph by F. A.' Swaine.
DR. J. C. BOSE'S PARENTS \ . - . . ; . , Facing p. '24
PROFESSOR J. C. BOSE'S FRIDAY EVENING DISCOURSE
ON ' ELECTRIC WAVES ' BEFORE THE ROYAL
INSTITUTION (1896) . . . . ,, 58
LADY BOSE . .' . . . . . ,. ii&
PROFESSOR j. C. BOSE (1907) . . . ,', ,/ 119
THE MAGNETIC CRESCOGRAPH (FiG. 18) . . . ,,. . 158
LOCALISATION OF THE GEO-PERCEPTIVE LAYER BY
MEANS OF THE ELECTRIC PROBE (FiG. 23) . ,, 158
THE 'PRAYING' PALM (FiG. 24) . . . . ,, 198
THE BOSE INSTITUTE . . . . . . ., 242
ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT
FIG. PACK
T. PERIODICITY OF ELECTRIC TOUCH .... 74
2. PHOTOGRAPHY WITHOUT LIGHT ..... 83
3. ELECTRIC RESPONSE OF METAL SHOWING FATIGUE (TIN) ^93
4. ACTION OF STIMULANT IN ENHANCING RESPONSE OF
METAL (PLATINUM) ...... 94
5 . ACTION OF POISON IN ABOLISHING RESPONSE OF MUSCLE,
PLANT, AND METAL . . . . 95
6. STIMULATING ACTION OF MINUTE QUANTITY OF ' POISON/
WHICH IN LARGE DOSES ABOLISHES THE RESPONSE
OF METAL ........ 96
7. THE OPTICAL PULSE-RECORDER . . . .129
8. THE ' STAIRCASE ' ENHANCEMENT OF RESPONSE IN PLANT 131
xi
xii ILLUSTRATIONS
FIG.
PAGE
9. ' FATIGUE ' DEPRESSION OF RESPONSE IN PLANT . 132
10. UPPER PART OF THE RESONANT RECORDER . . 140
1 1 . GENERAL VIEW OF THE RESONANT RECORDER ATTACHED
TO THE PLANT ....... 142
12. RECORD FOR DETERMINATION OF THE LATENT PERIOD OF
LEAF OF MIMOSA 143
13. THE MIMOSA AND THE TELEGRAPH PLANT. . .145
14. DEPRESSION OF EXCITABILITY UNDER CARBONIC ACID
AND REVIVAL ON READMISSION OF FRESH AIR . 149
15. DEPRESSING EFFECT OF A PASSING CLOUD . . 150
1 6. ABOLITION OF PULSATION AT THE DEATH OF THE PLANT 151
17. THE HIGH MAGNIFICATION CRESCOGRAPH . . 155
19. THE BALANCED CRESCOGRAPH 174
20. RECORD SHOWING THE EFFECT OF CARBONIC ACID GAS
ON GROWTH 175
21. RECORD OF RESPONSES OF PLANT TO WIRELESS STIMU-
LATION ........ 179
22. EFFECTS OF DIRECT AND INDIRECT STIMULUS . .185
25. RECORDS OF THE DAILY MOVEMENT OF THE PALM TREE,
OF TROPAEOLUM, AND OF THE PALM LEAF . . 201
26. DIURNAL RECORD SHOWING VARIATION OF SENSIBILITY
OF MIMOSA ........ 203
THE LIFE AND WORK
OF
SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
CHAPTER I
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION
' THE boy is father of the man.' Hence the writers of
biographies have always sought to learn and tell all they
could of the early environment of their subjects ; for these
formative influences, and the response of childhood and
youth to them, are often seen to throw lights on characters
as brought out in later years, and so on their achievements.
Thus Auguste Comte as yet the most comprehensive and
appreciative of biographers, since most clearly setting before
himself and his successors the appreciation of the main
contributors to civilisation was wont to quote two lines
of de Vigny's : ' What is a great life ? It is a thought of
youth wrought out in ripening years/ And as psychology
progresses, we are learning more and more fully not only
how fundamental is ancestral and parental influence, how
influential are early conditions, but also how significant are
childish feelings and fancies, dreamings and doings ; how
important too are the boy's thoughts and endeavours ; and
how deeply determinative those of the adolescent, as he
looks onwards towards his life, and makes his choices among
its oft-dividing ways.
Vikrampur is a large area west of Dacca, the capital
of Eastern Bengal. It is a region of fair fertility, but even
2 j LIFE AND ; WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
* now outside that ctf-jute^ultivation, so that its old character
may still be seen. The Mahommedan population is con-
siderable ; but for Hindus it is interesting as rich in tradi-
tional culture, even in sacred associations ; and of course
fifty years ago it was much more so. Vikrampur is in-
cluded in the Dacca district ; and the village of Rarikhal in
Vikrampur is the family home of the Boses, this being about
35 miles west of Dacca city. Jagadis Chunder Bose was
born on November 30, 1858, and his early childhood was
mainly spent at Faridpur, which is the centre of the next
district, 35 miles farther west again. These distances are
as the crow flies ; to get from one place to another the
communication was by river and thus circuitous.
Vikrampur has from very ancient times been famous
as a seat of learning. From surrounding districts, even
from distant provinces of India, youths were wont to come
to the ' Tols ' Sanskrit schools kept by Brahmins of the
old type and learning : in fact we may think of Vikrampur
as till lately a University centre of the type of bygone ages.
Of this a good deal was surviving fifty years ago, and some-
thing lingers to this day. Tradition is extant of there being
a Man Mandir or astronomical observatory where transit
of stars and planets were observed. Why this localisation ?
As so commonly throughout India, definite historic records
are lacking, though oral traditions of saints and sages used
to be rife. Moreover the evidence of surrounding monu-
ments, and yet more numerous ruins, proves Vikrampur to
have been a peculiarly rich and active centre of Buddhist
culture : hence it is but natural that the Hindu revival which
followed this should have been active here, and so strike
deep and firm roots in its turn.
These ancient cultures, then, have their influence in
producing a population interested in education, affected
by ideas and ideals : hence it is not solely for Bose's in-
dividual sake that a new and ambitious school is at present
being founded in his ancestral village to bear his name,
but also as an expression of the old cultural interest, here
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION 3
as elsewhere feeling its way towards readjustment to the
times. Mahommedans here, too, as nearly always tinged
by their Hindu surroundings, are moving along with them.
But East Bengal people are by no means all a gentle
peasant folk, responsive to religion and education. The
great rivers introduce strong elements of movement and
enterprise, of fishery and transport ; in various ways stimu-
lating, adventurous, unsettling, even to the peasant villages.
The contrast, the mingling and the clashing of peasant
and fisher populations, so deeply formative throughout
the history of Mediterranean and Western Europe, have
long been here in evidence, though of course on the
smaller scale of a river system as compared with seas and
coasts, and thus operative on the small scale instead of the
great. Peasant prosperity was advanced by easy transports,
and vigour and wellbeing improved by fish diet. The
villagers were also relieved of their more restive young
spirits by the call of the rivers, with their long perspectives
promising freer and more adventurous careers.
But beside the elements of sport and luck which give
charm to the fisher life, and the more ambitious lure of gain,
even comparative fortune, through transports and commerce,
these rivers have an old and evil reputation for dacoity ;
for such robberies they notably facilitate, since their
numberless creeks and adjacent jungles afford sally-ports
and refuges by turns. Here then we have the conditions at
once for agricultural and riverine villages in prosperity, but
also for a vigorous lawless class, who find these villages
worth robbing. Yet the robbers never became strong
enough to dominate their district : for even apart from the
vigilance and repression of governments, the water-thief
and pirate cannot venture far from his boat. Thus his
depredations were but sufficient only to produce watchful-
ness in the villages, with frequent and ready defence and
resistance, attack and pursuit, in turn. In short, such
villagers tend to be roused beyond the plodding life of the
peasant, which is too readily acceptant of life's ills ; and
4 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
they develop more or less of that type of people described
by an old traveller as ' difficult and dangerous to deal with ;
for when you attack them they defend themselves/ Modern
government, with its magistracy and police, has long abated
this defensive necessity ; yet its best instruments for main-
taining security are obviously the picked local men who
in earlier times were such village defenders ; while the best
of local magistrates is the man who would have been their
leader, at once by natural and acquired qualities.
Here then in this Faridpur district we see, though in
too scanty outline, other main factors, besides those of
Vikrampur, in the child Jagadis' early surroundings and
upbringing. These factors were operative in eliciting that
note of strenuous and persistent courage in facing dangers
and adversities, and of untiring combativeness against every
difficulty, which we shall find throughout his youthful and
maturing years.
For Bose's father Bhagaban Chunder Bose, Deputy
Magistrate of Faridpur was the active defender, not only
of the townlet, but of the scores of villages around as well.
The modern magistrate is mainly settled between his court-
house and his home ; but here in those days a man was
needed, picked not only for judicial capacity, intelligence
and local knowledge, but for active initiative and courage,
and thus prepared at any moment to assume command of
his own police and his people as well, and be ready even
to raid the raiders. Of this readiness various stories might
be told. As a single example, hearing of a gang of
dacoits in his neighbourhood, Mr. Bose mounted an elephant
and, with the very few police available, rode straight into
the very heart of the dacoits' camp. Taken by surprise,
they broke and scattered ; the ready magistrate dropped
down, captured the leader with his own hands, and took
him back for trial.
Such vigour of action, with total freedom from those
elements ~of ~!acit compromise between police and crime
which had sometimes existed before (and are said even now
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION 5
not to be unknown in India), could not but exasperate
the dacoits ; and their fiercer spirits repeatedly organised
attempts at revenge. One group, whom he had tried and
sentenced, turned on him as they were being led away with
the threat that ' when we get out, we will make the red
horse fly/ Three or four years later they kept their word.
One midnight the thatch of Mr. Bose's bungalow was set
on fire from three or four corners, and the outhouses also
were ablaze. Suddenly aroused from sleep by the crackling
and smoke, the household could but rush out into the com-
pound, without time to remove anything. The immediate
neighbours, who as it happened were mostly Mahommedans,
hastened to the rescue. One of them saw in the burning
house a small figure, which in the smoke and firelight he
mistook ; he ran back to Mr. Bose, saying, ' You would not
like us to touch your idol, but I think it can be saved/
' Idol ! I have no idol, let me see ! ' and here was the
little daughter (afterwards Mrs. M. M. Bose), then aged only
three, who in the scattered confusion of the family had not
been missed, but was sitting on her bed, fascinated rather
than terrified by the scene. The father rushed in, and
carried the child out ; and a moment after the roof fell in.
Everything was lost ; when the strong-box was extricated
from the ruins, ornaments and money, gold, silver and
copper were fused into a mass ; and the horses and cows
in the outhouses had perished. But one neighbour lent
a part of his house, others lent clothing and cooking-
vessels, and so the family encamped as best it could
for a month or more, until a fresh house this time
prudently of substantial construction was secured. The
burned house had been Mr. Bose's own, so this severe
loss was a beginning of the many misfortunes of his
later career.
A year or two later, when the boy Jagadis was five or six,
he recalls from a ' Mela ' or popular fair, a wrestling match
among the policemen, mostly big stalwart fellows from
the North-Western Provinces, who practised much among
6 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
themselves. A fine performance, though it was said after-
wards not without previous arrangement of who was to
win. A peasant onlooker remarked that if he were allowed
to take part he would wrestle the champion. So Mr. Bose
took him at his word, and started the pair. Sure enough
the peasant made good his boast ; but the policeman,
indignant at his defeat, suddenly threw his legs round his
victor's neck before he could rise. The peasant was plainly
choking ; the spectators shouted for fair play ; but the
angry man would not let go, not even for Mr. Bose's orders ;
so he had to strike him sharply on the feet till he relaxed,
leaving his unlucky victor half-strangled. The fellow was
revengeful as well as angry ; and at a quiet corner of the
road he lay in wait for Mr. Bose, as he would come to the
Jatra, the old form of Indian drama, to be played that
evening. He missed his intended victim ; so outside the
big tent where the play was held, he egged on his fellow-
policemen, who were also feeling humiliated before the
peasants, to annoy and hinder them as they came to the
performance, and keep them out of the tent, even with
blows. Mr. Bose, hearing a scuffle, came up ; and seeing
the policemen were bullying, and without cause, demanded
their sticks from them, and took up an armful. The ex-
champion refused : Bose pulled the bamboo from his hands,
and a sword fell out. With his criminal intent thus publicly
exposed, the man fell down at Mr. Bose's feet, and confessed
his intention to murder him. Then and there he was for-
given : ' Get up ; go back to your duty/ He was a decent
man ever afterwards.
Another story of the same type of mercy follow-
ing justice, instead of superseding it is of a notorious
dacoit to whom he had given a long sentence. After his
years of jail were served, he came to Mr. Bose and said,
' What am I to do ? I can get no honest employment : I
have no chance as a released convict.' Said Mr. Bose, ' I
will take you into my service : this little boy has to begin
school ; carry him there, and bring him back every day/
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION 7
So this young Jagadis, mounted on the dacoit's side, had
a glorious half-hour or more each way, his infant mind
being fed with all the stories of his new guardian's adventures
one for each of the spear-thrusts and arrow-wounds from
the old fights of his wild days, which had covered his breast
and arms with scars. Tales of the assembling dacoits and
of their attacks on a village, with suddenly lighted torches
and loud war-cries, to scare the people and take them un-
awares. Yet tales also of the courage of the defenders, now
of their defeat and robbery, or again of their successful
resistance ; tales of his own narrow escapes and of the
death of companions, or their capture, and finally of his
own : all these tales and more were vividly told again and
again to the wondering child. So here at first-hand was
that romantic arousal to the dangers and adventures of life,
for which most youngsters have to depend on books alone,
as of Red Indians for modern Western boys, or of highway-
men or pirates in their grandfathers' time. After a year of
this companionship, young Jagadis was given a pony ; and
this became a part of the charge of the dacoit, who was always
as honest and faithful a servant as could be. Once indeed
he had a special opportunity of proving himself true to his
salt. On one of the family's visits to the old family home
at Vikrampur, on Mr. Bose's annual vacation-leave, a long
boat journey, a suspicious-looking boat, with many rowers,
dashed out of a creek, and made after them : plainly dacoits,
from whom there seemed r no escape. But now our tamed
dacoit rose to the occasion : he jumped up on the boat roof
and, standing erect to be recognised, gave a long and peculiar
call. It was at once understood and accepted, for the
pursuers straightway turned round and disappeared. This
man remained with the family for four or five years in all,
until Mr. Bose's promotion to Burdwan, when he returned
to his native village, armed with the respectable record
of a magistrate's old servant, behind which no one need
inquire. Are criminals often thus kindly and wisely
treated ? If not, have not the world's magistratures,
8 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
nowadays so regularised and formalised in their procedure,
something to learn from such old-fashioned predecessors
of whom there have always been a few, but too few in every
land?
The innate gentleness of this vigorous magistrate be-
comes increasingly manifested throughout our too scanty
records of a career which plainly in itself might have made
a volume. For despite unusually active duties, he found
time alike for advancing material interests and cultural ones ;
and these both separately and together. Thus year by year
he organised one of the Melas which were even then
beginning to fall into desuetude, but which he effectively
revived. He encouraged their old elements of religious
festivals, public holiday, and fair, with dramatic and athletic
performances ; and he was wont to organise along with them
an exhibition of local manufactures and agricultural pro-
ducts much, in fact, as if in European villages we could
revive the old ' Holy Fair ' with its sports and miracle
plays, arranging along with them an exhibition of home
industries and an agricultural and horticultural show.
One of his son's vivid recollections is of the joys of a
Mela to which his father had brought an excellent troupe
of Jatra players, whose performance was as great and amazing
a j oy to the Bose children as to the people. This appreciation
is evidenced not only by an enduring memory of the vivid
scenes, the breathless and crowded audience, but by a quaint
and pleasing recollection of the English chief magistrate
who was in the audience, and who not only emptied his
pocket of the substantial handful of rupees he had brought
for the players after their performance, but stirred and
shaken altogether out of usual official decorum and reserve
bade them wait while he ran hastily back to his house for
more ; and with many added compliments, sent the delighted
players on their homeward way.
In 1869 (when Jagadis was ten years old) his father
became Assistant-Commissioner of Burdwan, where he
remained four or five years, till 1874. Here the duties were
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION 9
more of the ordinary kind ; but a new emergency soon arose
to call out his powers. Burdwan had long enjoyed a
peculiarly good reputation for health ; so much so indeed
as to be a frequent holiday centre for Calcutta people, who
described it as a veritable sanatorium on their return.
Malaria had been almost unknown ; but suddenly in 1870
there was an outbreak, which is still remembered as among
the severest in the recent tragic records of Bengal.
Thousands perished, leaving a multitude of orphans.
The Assistant-Commissioner, after energetic work during
the epidemic, took their case actively in hand not only
giving, collecting, and administering relief, but establishing
industries, whereby the boys might be trained to self-
supporting usefulness. No building was available, so he gave
up a great part of his own large house and compound ; and
there he opened workshops in carpentry, in metal turning,
in general metal-work, and even a foundry. From this
there survives a big and noble brass vessel still in daily use
in the Bose household in Calcutta an heirloom which will
long survive to show the quality of the foundry's products.
Here too the little Jagadis begged from his mother some
old brass vessels, and persuaded the foundryman to
cast them into quite a good-sized brass cannon, which
was fired off in season and out of season accordingly, and
is still looked back to with an affection even exceeding that
for the scientific toys of his later life, more elaborate but
less noisy and formidable.
In 1875 Mr. Bose became Executive Officer in charge of
the Cutwa Sub-division, and here he came to the severest
emergency of his career the terrible famine of 1880.
Though now past his prime, he faced this, disaster with fuller
energy than ever, organising relief throughout his district.
TBuTafter the famine was ended, the nervous wear and tear,
as well as the physical strain of such work, told heavily
on him. With heroic asceticism, he could not bear to eat
well while the people starved ; and so went out day by day
to the starving villagers, with long rides out and home, and
io LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
painful overwork between, with only a few handfuls of
powdered wheat, taken with water as chance allowed. With
broken health apparently a slight stroke of paralysis he
was thus compelled to take two years of medical leave, which
he spent mainly in Calcutta, where his son was by this time
at College. Here too his busy brain could not rest. He
had always seen the need of promoting Indian agriculture
and industry : and as for such a man thought is inseparable
from action, he more and more invested in active enter
prise the considerable savings of his career, supplemented
as these were from home property and by family inheritance.
He acquired land in the Terai and set about clearing and
stock farming ; but despite the excellence of some of the
produce, it lay too far from markets, and the land was
unhealthy as well. The enterprise therefore ended with loss.
Tea-planting was also then beginning : he saw its possibilities
and argued If Scotsmen can face such enterprises and such
climate, why should not Indians do the same ? So he
acquired a couple of thousand acres in Assam. Large expen-
diture was needed for clearing and planting, and this again
in unhealthy conditions ; additional capital had to be
borrowed at high interest, far more than the slowly begin-
ning returns of tea could meet : thus anxieties, losses, dis-
appointments, year after year. At length, though unhappily
not in his time, this pioneering has prospered, and the
plantation has for a good many years been increasingly
successful ; first in the hands of an Indian manager, and
now of sons of his daughters, effective in their turn.
The final disaster was that of a weaving company in
Bombay which Mr. Bose had been persuaded by high
and patriotic promises, anticipating those of the later
Swadeshi movement, to support with his remaining capital.
With this the directors then absconded, leaving no trace.
Still the sufferer was not embittered by his disasters ;
and at the expiry of his long sick leave he resumed his
official duties, this time at Pabna, where he worked on for
four or five years longer, till the age of retirement. We
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION n
may now return to earlier and happier years, and to the
father's virile initiation and guidance of his son's education.
A father so exceptionally active in public duties and
these beyond ordinary routine and with external interests
as well, in these days generally leaves the care of his
children's education to others. But not so in the Bose
household, where the father all along was felt not only as
authority, but as guide and friend. Philosopher too for
the child Jagadis, to whom the father, discerning nascent
powers, wisely gave all the time he could spare, especially
during those earliest years of a child's development and
awakening, perhaps the most marvellous of all the many
wonders of mental evolution, and correspondingly im-
portant for the educator. Tired after his long day,
the father used to lie down beside the child after the
evening meal, to encourage and patiently answer the
flood of questions which the eager little observer had been
gathering for him throughout the day, and which he had
to go through before he could be induced to settle down to
sleep. ' I saw so-and-so to-day : why was that ? ' was a
standard type of question, and always patiently answered
when possible ; yet often perhaps most important and
educative of all for the future investigator with a candid
confession of ignorance, and never any of the evasion, or
pretence of knowledge beyond a child's, which is so common
a discouragement to children from parents less frank and
wise. ' I don't know, my son : we cannot tell ; we know
so little about nature ! ' was thus a frequent reply : but
instead of lowering the child's respect, as foolish parents
and teachers fear, this only aroused further wonder, and
kept curiosity and observation alive. In such ways it is
that the questioning child later becomes the scientific man :
and what scientific man worth the name in history is more
than such a child of larger growth ? The ' advancement of
Science ' is no such easy matter as founders of its schools
and departments suppose. It requires a corresponding
12 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
supply of men of science ; these again are not the mere
products of specialist training. Scientific training can only
be of real service to the few survivors amidst the too common
home and family indifference to knowledge. That is only
advanced by those who, when children, were encouraged
to observe and question, and were not silenced and dulled
for life, like their elders before them, with * Don't ask silly
questions ! ' or evaded with ' I have no time ! '
A quaint memory of this intensity of questioning of the
father survives that of the good grandmother pretending
to frighten the little Jagadis with a big stick 'and really
a little angry : ' Boy, why don't you let my son sleep ?
Don't you know he is tired out ? You will be the death
of him ! '
Here is a flash of child-insight. ' Father, before coming
in I saw a bush on fire ! I went to it, and saw it was all
full of flies flies all on fire ! What was this ? What did
it mean ? Why did they do this ? ' Then the candid
answer, which even naturalists had not then got beyond.
* I cannot tell : we know too little ! ' ' Father, is not beauty
enough ? ' So the writer has seen his own little boy too
fascinated by some outdoor sight to come in to food ; and
then, when at last reluctantly brought in, and asked, ' What
kept you why did you not come ? ' reply, ' Beauty is
better than hunger ! ' (meaning of course the satisfaction
of it). Such incidents show that the philosophy of beauty
of which so many thinkers have had glimpses, as well as
the poets and artists their fuller vision is natural to child-
hood ; so Croce or Baldwin, as main exponents of this
philosophy to-day in the West and in America, are plainly
also children who have kept this early and natural vision
of the world.
Here is another quaint reminiscence of child and grand-
mother. A devout soul, often in prayer, she was wont daily
to model in clay, to concentrate her devotions, an image of
Shiva : and this, after worship and offering of flowers, was
thrown back to the earth an evidence, we may note in
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION 13
passing, that ' idolatry ' is not so idolatrous as we are often
told, but may be purely symbolic. This well-kneaded clay
was valued by the children for their less spiritual efforts ;
and the little Jagadis was wont to wait patiently until
worship was over, and he could claim the image, no longer
sacred, for modelling of playthings. But one day the de-
votions were unusually long-continued, and the child could
restrain himself no longer and so ran off with the image,
while in use. The grandmother's shock was great when
she realised the sacrilege ; and though the offender was
gently dealt with, Brahmins and poor folks were fed, and
other expiatory rites performed.
As said before, the Bose family lands were at Rarikhal,
a Vikrampur village 35 miles east from Faridpur, so that
the old home was visited at most hardly once a year ;
and the main environment for the children's years
was that of the Faridpur official residence a fairly
spacious dwelling, with good-sized compound and garden,
beside the main road and separated only by this and a
large meadow from a branch of the Padma river : one not
of great size, as the main East Bengal rivers go, but strong
and turbulent in flood-time.
The roadside stream too then ran strong, and especially
where narrowed by the little bridge leading to the house :
so there the child would watch the river ' Water moving !
Moving water ! 'with an intensity, a strong fascina-
tion still vividly remembered by the ageing man. Here
plainly was one of those deep and elemental child-experi-
ences of matter and motion which were needed to make
the physicist later ; to whom ' kinetic energy/ ' wave-
motion/ and the like, were never the mere book-terms
of the crammed student, but expressed and defined real
imagery from early experience. Thus the man's scientific
and speculative thoughts find ready store of early and vivid
images to attach themselves to images at once concrete
and beautiful, fascinating and mysterious. And does not
the electrician's mental conception owe such clearness" as
14 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
it, has been acquiring for the last century not a little to
the imageries of water in movement, as from ' current '
onwards ?
Besides such subconscious preparation of the future
physicist, the boy had from the first a strong interest in
animal life, which might well have made him a zoologist.
The fish and fish-trap of the little home-bridge over the
road-stream, the water-snake he captured, to the alarm of
his elder sister, are to this day vivid memories. So too'
are the varied insects, so often beautiful or strange, in
which India abounds. But above all the kindly creatures,
which could be made pets of, attracted him ; and this taste
was wisely encouraged from the first.
From his fifth year he was given a pony, and soon
learned to stick on indeed so well and pluckily that at the
Faridpur races some of the spectators in fun said to the
child, ' Go on ; you are to race too ! ' Taking them at
their word, the child stirred on his pony, which rose fully
to the occasion, and carried him for his first gallop round
the course after the big horses. The rough saddle-girths,
which he had to grip with his short legs, and with all his
might he had no stirrups scratched and tore his skin
so deeply that it still bears the marks ; but he felt the joy
of the race, stuck to his purpose, finished the round, and
came in duly last, to receive hearty praise, as of victory.
He said nothing of his wounds, till the blood betrayed
them, and he was sent home for repairs. Thus early in
childhood does the man's character appear. Again, just
before beginning school, little Jagadis had seen a man
brought in mauled by a tiger, and watched the village
surgery of his wounds. Some days after, being reproved
by his mother, he made off into the sugar-cane plantation,
where the tiger had seized his victim, there to offer himself
up in his turn and thus make mother repent her hard
words ! But deep among the rustling canes, his courage,
failed him ; and he returned with wailings, which soon
brought him maternal consolation and renewed peace.
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION 15
But in these modern days of earlier and earlier schooling
even then beginning, a boy's home freedom soon ends ;
and even with his fifth year Jagadis was sent to school.
There were two schools in Faridpur : one vernacular,
established by Mr. Bose for the children of the people ;
the other the Government school with its instruction in
English ; and to this practically all destined for a more
advanced education were sent from their earliest years.
But here Mr. Bose, defying the local public opinion and
the shocked remonstrances of his friends, and even of his
own clerks, whose sons were at the English school, insisted
on sending his boy to the vernacular one. And this with
outspoken expression of his two reasons, educational and
social that a child should know his own mother tongue
before beginning English ; and further, that he should
first know his own people, and not be kept apart by that
false pride which nowadays in India tends to separate
the prosperous classes from their less fortunate brethren
here following the disastrous example set by England,
which for two generations has been so deeply influenced by
' Tom Brown's Schooldays/ yet has missed their earliest
and perhaps most truly educative prologue, telling of Tom
in the little village school before going to the great public
one. Jagadis' companions were the sons of fisher-folk and
peasants, and a natural comrade to and from school was
the son of his father's orderly. So to this day, though the
formal teaching of the school has long faded from memory,
there survive many lively impressions of the peasant-life,
and with enduring sympathy, perhaps most vividly of
all, the stories of the fisher-boys, of their fathers' experience
of the river, with its incidents and dangers. All these the
boy eagerly wove into his imaginative world of the wonders
of nature and the romance of man ; moreover, these went
well with the dacoit servant's adventures already mentioned.
This little Faridpur school essentially of the ' Three
R's ' seems to have been already moving into that well-
conventionalised dullness which has been so characteristic
16 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
of those of the past generation in East and West alike, and
from which both are too slowly escaping. Indeed in those
days games which in later years have become so popular,
at length even in many schools compulsory, were still
contraband. The master strongly disapproved of cricket,
even in the boys' free afternoon hours, as ' a waste of time/
which should be given for the preparation of lessons. But
the boys there as everywhere spontaneously carrying out
this needed scholastic revolution were too clever for their
pedagogue. They got the village carpenter to shape them
rough bats and stumps ; and from the juice of an india-
rubber tree, slowly rolling and modelling it, they managed
a pretty fair ball. .For a field they chose a broad road-
crossing, at a quiet place well off the main way between
village and school : they posted a scout at each of the
approaches from these, and so played with fearful joy ; till
sometimes the alarm was given of the suspicious master's
coming. But the boys were ready for him : the stumps
were pulled, and all dived into the nulla-bed, where they
had already collected a store of dry leaves ; among these
they lay concealed till the danger had passed, and, happier
than ' the babes in the wood/ they could come out to resume
their game.
The schoolbooks too were already more or less acquiring
the European standard, their cram-trade type, and so
could be of little interest to the children : still, although
more slowly, the young Jagadis did really learn to read for
himself at home. Thanks to the good early start given by
the Jatras, the old popular plays mentioned above, he
grew more and more interested in the stories of the ' Maha-
bharata' and ' Ramayana/ In the latter the character of
Rama, and still more the soldierly devotion of his brother
Lakshmana, impressed him ; but ' the characters were
mostly too good, too perfect/ It was the old warriors of
the ' Mahabharata/ more rudely virile and strenuous, with
their defects and qualities, at once human and superhuman,
who made more appeal to the imagination of the boy, and
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION 17
who have thus made more impression upon his character
and outlook on life. Above all, and most characteristically,
it was Kama who became the boy's hero ; and this from
ten years old onwards, up to the formative years of puberty
indeed so deeply that it might still be put on his garden-
stage to-day and the part vividly played by him, despite
grey hairs and science ! Indeed it should be so ; for hear
him talk : ' Kama ! Kama ! the greatest of all the heroes !
Eldest of the Pandavas, he should have been the king ; but
he was more the son of a great god. Floated away by
his mother, he was found and brought up by the wife of a
charioteer, who trained him to be the great warrior he was.
From his low caste came rejections, came every dis-
advantage ; but he always played and fought fair ! So his
life, though a series of disappointments and defeats to the
very end his slaying by Arjuna appealed to me as a
boy as the greatest of triumphs. I still think of the tourna-
ment where Arjuna had been victor, and then of Kama
coming as a stranger to challenge him. Questioned of
name and birth, he replies, " I am my own ancestor ! You
do not ask the mighty Ganges from which of its many
springs it comes : its own flow justifies itself, so shall my
deeds me ! " Then later, when before the great battle his
mother reveals to him the secret of his birth, and tells him
that if he will refrain from this contest with her sons whom
he now for the first time knows to be his younger brothers
she will answer for it that he shall be their chief, and reign
.as Emperor; he says "No! Those who brought me up
are my true mother and father, poor though they be ; and
it is Duryadhana, King of the Kauravas, who has been my
chief through life. I cannot change sides now. But this
I promise you : on your other sons, my brothers, I will not
lay a hand, save only on Arjuna ; but him I must fight to
the end. ! " And then their battle ! At Arjuna he aims
his arrow, and would have slain him ; but a defending god
shakes the earth under his feet as he lets the arrow fly, and
so it misses his enemy by a hairbreadth. Now the arrow
i8 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
was magical, tjiough Kama knew it not ; so it flew back
into his hand and spoke to him : "I was made to kill
Arjuna ; with my winged sharpness and your aim we are
invincible : aim me once more/' But Kama threw it away,
saying, " I will have no advantage ; I fight but in my own
strength ! " And so he took again another arrow. But this
time the unfriendly god suddenly opened an earth-crack
which swallowed Kama's chariot-wheel ; he leapt down
to lift it out, and as he stooped Arjuna cut him down with
his great sword ; and so he fell, still defiant of his fate !
' This too was the hero I loved to identify with my own
father always in struggle for the uplift of the people, yet
with so little success, such frequent failures, that to most
he seemed a failure. All this too gave me a lower
and lower idea of all ordinary worldly success how small
its so-called victories are ! and with this a higher and
higher idea of conflict and defeat ; and of the true
success born of defeat. In such ways I have come to feel
one with the highest spirit of my race ; with every fibre
thrilling with the emotion of the past. That is its noblest
teaching that the only real and spiritual advantage and
victory is to fight fair, never to take crooked ways, but
keep to the straight path, whatever be in the way ! '
Again and still in his own words ' I feel how necessary
it is to keep alive the great traditions of the heroic age
of India through travelling Jatra players and the reciters
of the epics. It is through them that the highest national
culture has been kept alive among the people. They are
fast disappearing, and we must either revive the institu-
tion or have its modern equivalent. Last night I was
thinking of your Edinburgh and London Masques of
Learning, with our Indian students presenting our tradi-
tions. Why not do the same here, on the full Indian
scale, from the old Aryan forefathers onwards, and with
all races, all castes, with their heroes and their sages ?
And the cities too, from the early days of old Pataliputra,
and holy Benares ! Yes, and on to modern Bombay.
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION 19
And the people too ; from our old primitive folk to modern
Bengal, and to Calcutta, with its poets, artists, thinkers !
Why cannot this be done ? It should be ! It must be !
Then and then only shall we fully realise the true India,
where all peoples with their traditions became unified by
the spirit of their land, and where even elements seemingly
discordant may yield factors of individuality and strength.
It is these which have kept India rejuvenescent and
ever evolving ; and which will save her from that palsy
of death which has extinguished so many of her ancient
contemporaries ! '
To all this the writer cannot but warmly agree ; since
for him, among all the many advances of education, amid
which he has worked experimentally throughout life, there
is none in his experience which has more fully justified its
value than does dramatisation ; and this from the earliest
childish make-believe and its small home scenes, and through
village and family plays, up to the largest culture-
pageanting which University has yet made for City. So
let him recall from one of these Masques its scene of highest
dramatic and literary commemoration for the English
tongue that of the Mermaid Tavern, with Ben Jonson in
its chair, and Shakespeare making his farewell to him and
all his old companions. Among them high place was
given to three whose names are seldom remembered,
yet who were none the less the virtual professoriate of that
illustrious group of dramatists and poets. For one was the
chronicler who gave Shakespeare his plot for ' Macbeth/ and
for his English historical plays ; another the translator of
Plutarch's ' Lives ' of the great Greeks and Romans, without
which we should lack Mark Antony, and more ; and the
third was the translator of Montaigne, whose kindly wisdom
suffused Shakespeare's thought, and kindled Bacon to his
scarcely less immortal Essays. Such a scene is thus no
mere past revival, but an affirmation too, of a long-lost
yet now returning secret that of the permeation of the
Theatre with the great heritage of the university. For by
20 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
this union the one may be redeemed from its too common
triviality, or worse : the other from its too common dullness,
and worse ; and thus may come, through these together,
the needed renewal of popular culture as well.
Return from such forecasts of the coming education of
the next generation to the early days of our elder one, fifty
years ago ; and so start with young Jagadis at his next
school. At this time his father was transferred to Western
Bengal, as the Assistant-Commissioner of Burdwan. By
nine years old his vernacular grounding, on which his father
had so wisely insisted, was secure enough to justify his
sending him now to a higher English school ; and so, after
three months at the Hare School in Calcutta, he was sent
to the more strictly English teaching of St. Xavier's.
Even then it was introducing that high educational
tradition of the Jesuits which, despite Protestant and other
ill will, has made their teaching respected in all lands.
Still, we scientific men cannot but plead for further progress
into that fuller life of all studies with which the Jesuits,
and more or less all other Western schools, so vividly began.
Hence, as indeed for most of us in East or West, the boy's
real and inward education was largely left in his own hands,
and in those of external circumstances, and these were
not without their painful sides. The school was almost
exclusively of English boys, themselves but little acquainted
with Bengali, and that not of the best ; so little Jagadis's
situation was perplexing, with only a beginning of English,
enough to puzzle out sentence by sentence, but not really
to read, much less to talk. Moreover, while the other boys
were at home in the great city, the newcomer was completely
a country boy, with no previous town experience at all,
and with his familiar world suddenly left behind, and of
little avail, save as a solace of memory. After the teasings
and baitings which new boys have so often to suffer,
there came the compulsory fight ; in this case quite
normally as boys' stories go with a substantially bigger
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION 21
fellow, the class champion, not to say bully, who had
already had frequent experience in the use of his fists,
while the little Jagadis had never yet clenched his fist at
all. Heavily pounded accordingly, with bleeding nose and
dazed and watery eyes he seemed defeated and the fight
practically at an end ; but then came a burst of war-
fury, a memory perhaps of the old heroes, at any rate
an onslaught so furious as to surprise the other, and knock
him down, wellnigh stunned, and unwilling or unable to
rise at call. So the youngster was hailed victor, and
acquired full rights of freemanship ; yet hardly of comrade-
ship, for the respective backgrounds of town and country,
of East Bengal and England, remained too different. A
further disadvantage was that Jagadis had been placed in
a hostel in which the others were not schoolboys, but students
of different colleges, who took little or no notice of the little
chap, and whose world was also too far away. Though not
wholly isolated from games of his schoolfellows, he found
his main interest through return to his home pursuits. His
pocket money was spent on animal, pets, and to their
housing and tending his spare time was devoted. In the
corner of the compound too he laid out a little garden and
spent much ingenuity upon its water-supply, winding about
some pipes which he managed to lay hands on, and making
a little stream with a little bridge, evidently based on those
of home. It is amusing to note the renewal of this piping
and stream in later years in Bose's Darjeeling garden, and
to find stream, bridge and all in the little garden of his
Calcutta home, next the Bose Institute. Indeed the writer,
as veracious chronicler and would-be interpretative critic,
cannot but see in this old child-interest the explanation
of an otherwise unintelligibly strong, even emphatic, longing
for a stream and bridge in the recent lay-out of his enlarged
garden at the Bose Institute last year. The writer's argu-
ment of impracticability, joined to those of the architect,
at the time discouraged them ; yet we see that the mature
Director of the Bose Institute may still be constrained, by
22 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
his inmost and subconscious self, to introduce them, despite
all our arguments ! For not simply is the boy the father
of the man : the boy is the man ; and the happiest man
is he who most truly remains the boy.
In such ways the man's happiest recollections are of
the bi-annual vacation at Burdwan and later at Cutwa
and plainly the most truly educational experience also.
Returning from school laden with new pets rabbits,
pigeons, a long-tailed lamb, and others he found occupa-
tion in building houses for them, with willing co-opera-
tion of admiring and rejoicing sisters. There too he had
his riding horse, faithfully kept for him. And the father's
wisdom, the mother's love, the grandmother's kindness and
piety, renewed the old atmosphere and encouraged fuller
growth.
CHAPTER II
COLLEGE DAYS AT CALCUTTA AND IN ENGLAND
AT sixteen Jagadis passed from school to St. Xavier's College ;
and there while doing the ordinary work, in - a more or
less ordinarily respectable way, but as yet without marked
interest or distinction he fell under the influence which
plainly determined his turning to Physics, rather than
to the natural history of his own more prominent tastes.
All the pupils of Father Lafont, so long Professor of
Physics in that college, recall his teaching and influence
as truly educative. His wealth of experiments and vivid
clearness of exposition of them, made his class the most
interesting in the whole college ; and his patient skill,
his subtlety, as well as brilliance of experimentation, were
appreciated by this young student above all. Here was
Bose's first discipline towards that combination of intellectual
lucidity with wealth of experimental device and resource by
which he has all the more fully represented and honoured
his old master by surpassing him.
But, as is common to youth, with its vague ferment of
ideas, its perplexity among ambitions, his career was not
at all clearly in sight. Finding that he could pass
examinations, and not without distinction, his first idea,
beyond taking his B.A., was to visit England for higher
training. At this time, as indicated in the preceding
chapter, Mr. Bose's schemes and investments had not only
mostly failed, but had burdened him with debts, of which the
high interests were swallowing all he could spare and save.
23
24 LIFE AMD WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
Jagadis keenly realised that his first duty was to take the
burden off his father, and by his own earnings to pay off
the debt. The most promising career for this was to win
a place in the Indian Civil Service. But Bose's father,
though himself successful and even distinguished in the
Government service, vetoed his son's proposals. He
strongly felt the position of an administrator as one too
much above and aloof from the fortunes and struggles of
the people ; and he did not wish his son to repeat this
authoritative experience, but to take a more ordinary part
among his fellow-men. He was willing to see him a scholar
or utilising his scientific aptitudes and training for the
advancement of Indian agriculture.
Young Bose then turned his attention towards medicine,
apparently the only avenue and means of support for
the career of natural science. This he still hoped to study
in some English University, and so thought of London.
But the great cost of a stay in England had to be reckoned
with ; and at this time his father was on his two years'
medical leave on reduced pay, and uncertain whether his
health would admit of return to duty, and its larger
income. It was clearly inexpedient for Jagadis to undertake
the expensive educational stay in England in circumstances
so uncertain.
A further complication, and for an affectionate son the
most serious of all, was his mother's dread of separation
her fear not only of the strange unknown Western world on
which her boy's heart was set, but also that terror of the
sea which is so common in India, though so strange to us
Western folk with seafaring in our blood. Is not this perhaps
a survival, with old folk-lore exaggeration, of the dangers
of the Indian coasts ? above all, perhaps, of the perils of the
days of Indian maritime enterprise towards the West, and
of voyaging to China with its typhoons, of colonisation of
Java and Cambodia, doubtless all with disasters, which, like
so much of Indian history generally, have lapsed from record
and even oral tradition, but survive in the national mind,
1 >,,.
:\- : A
r
COLLEGE DAYS 25
and pre-eminently in the minds of the mothers, and in
feelings intensified by vagueness ?
The mother had lost her second son, aged ten, when
Jagadis was seventeen, and she continued long to mourn
deeply ; but now concentrated her highest hopes and
tenderest caresses on her remaining son, as an Indian mother
so intensely does. Her nerves were thus doubly shaken^
since after her sorrow there came new and increasing fears
for Jagadis' wanderings. The father's affairs went on from
bad to worse, so a family council was held, and it decided,
for every reason, that Jagadis must not go. To do him
justice, he was also ending his own struggle with similar
conclusion ; he loyally admitted that under the circum-
stances it would be selfish of him to press further. In short,
he renounced his projects, and promised to settle down to
do his best in India.
But when all seemed settled, the mother's strength
of character came out, and to the full. She thought the
whole matter out afresh for herself, and rallied *from her
fears her all but nervous breakdown. So coming to
Jagadis' bedside one evening, and taking his head in her
lap as if he were still the child she felt him, she said : ' My
son, I cannot understand much of this going to Europe,
but I see your heart's desire is to educate yourself to the
utmost ; and so I have made up my mind. You shall
have your heart's desire. Though nothing is left of your
father's fortune, I have my jewels ; I have even some
money of my own. Between these I can manage it.
Go you shall ! '
With the mother thus decided, there was naturally no
more of family council in opposition, nor of father in
hesitation. After all, his veto had only been for the Civil
Service, and for the Law. He welcomed the idea of his
able son's doing well in medicine ; for science as a career
was then practically unthought of. His own health im-
proved, and he went back to his duties (now at Pubna),
which meant an increase of income. Hence the jewels were
26 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
not sold, and the mother was induced to keep her money for
Jagadis' return from Europe, though the family economies
were henceforth doubtless stricter than ever for their
student's sake as well as for relief of the father's burden.
To follow our student's changing fortunes more clearly,
we must look beyond his educational routine and its
anxious vicissitudes, and into the less conventional elements
which were meantime also part of his preparation for life.
The love of nature, of pets, of horses, readily develops in
youth towards sport and adventure in the wild. With the
advent of vigorous boyhood had come the joy of taking
risks, even in chancing narrow escapes ; and these were
forthcoming. Thus, when under fifteen, fording a doubtful
river on horseback, which the flood had cut deep, the horse
slipped into a hole, and turned over under water, leaving
its rider to disentangle himself, swim from under the
struggling animal, and land himself and it, little the worse.
This fine horse thereafter would tolerate no other rider,
not even his father, and so was idle during the long
terms of absence in Calcutta. His attendant, now an old
Rajput Sepoy, taught the boy shooting ; whence hunting
expeditions as often as might be. A college vacation at
nineteen culminated in a month in the Terai, with first
experience of big game, and vivid impressions of jungle
and forest. Then six months later came a fascinating
invitation to a hunting holiday in Assam, from a friendly
zemindar a crack shot and distinguished hunter ; and
with not only wild buffalo in his forest, but rhinoceros.
Arriving at the nearest railway station in the evening,
a palanquin was waiting for a night journey of twenty-one
miles. Then he was out for an active day's sport, but
in the evening came an alarming attack of fever, of
an unprecedented violence. It was agreed he should
return at once before it grew worse. But the palanquin
was not now available. Anxious to be off, he asked,
' Can you not spare me a horse ? ' ' The only horse
available is too dangerous for you a fine racer, but a
COLLEGE DAYS 27
brute with every vice, who nearly killed his last rider,
and whom no one has mounted since/ ' Let me see him ! '
Out came the horse from his stable ; but at the first advance
it reared, to fall on him with his forefeet, and to bite as
well. Dodging this attack, he jumped on its back, where-
upon the furious creature instantly bolted with him ; and
so, without a moment for farewell, much less for prepara-
tion for a more decorous start, the headlong gallop went
on without possibility of restraint. On the way appeared
a river previously crossed when asleep in the palanquin,
and with the road apparently making clear for its bridge ;
but with a path breaking off alongside some way ahead.
With the hunter's instinct and quick decision, he forced
the horse aside ; and the next moment saw the justification
of his action in avoiding the bridge broken by the flood,
into which horse and he, but for this change, must have
plunged together. In another moment the path led to a
light bamboo footbridge extemporised to replace the broken
one, and this the wild creature took in a few bounds,
cracking it nearly to breaking. Only after fourteen miles
was it exhausted, and so the final seven miles it went
quietly. The fever patient, exhausted still more, started on
the long railway journey to Calcutta. The fever resisted
quinine and all other treatment, and made frequent and
exhausting returns ; so that the University degree was
taken under difficulties. Nor did the brief home holiday
before sailing to England relieve it either.
With the sea- voyage, the fever grew worse, not better.
One day of extreme paroxysms, in making for the surgery,
he collapsed at the door, and was carried to his berth in
the doctor's arms. Treatment and nursing failed, as
in Calcutta ; and the patient overheard people saying,
' That poor boy will never see England.' His one pleasur-
able recollection of the whole long journey is of two
ladies on the railway journey from Southampton, who
spoke to him kindly and gave him their illustrated papers ;
28 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
and so gave a touch of life and cheerfulness to lighten
his depression.
Arrived at London, his B.A. diploma served him for
matriculation, and he started the usual first-year work of
the medical student. The physics and chemistry were much
what he had done before, but the zoology course, under
Ray Lankester, was interesting and wholly new ; for even
to this day Calcutta University excludes zoological science.
Botany too, in the summer term, was congenial, so that
the preliminary scientific examination was passed without
difficulty. With the following autumn term began the
first year of medical studies proper, with anatomy. But
the fever was still as bad as ever, with even more frequent
attacks, which were brought on intensely by the odours
of the dissecting-room. Hence the anatomist advised young
Bose to give up his medical course as hopeless. Dr. Ringer,
then the most distinguished physician of the Hospital,
as well as one of the best and kindliest of professors,
who had already been treating him with arsenical and
other injections, but all without success, concurred in this
advice. Thus thrown into new perplexity, Bose decided
on leaving London and taking to science at Cambridge.
The fever determined his course afresh, and for life. First
came a dreary struggle to cram Latin, etc., enough for the
entrance examination (in which Sanskrit was accepted
in lieu of Greek) ; but of all this little recollection remains,
save a lifelong ill will to Paley ! A natural science scholar-
ship was won at Christ's College, and he entered in January
1881. A very different life was thus begun, more congenial,
though only very slowly curative ; for this old metropolis
of the Fens was for an ague patient one of the worst of
climates to be found in Britain indeed north of the Mediter-
ranean. Abandoning all drugs, young Bose took to boating,
with daily perspiration accordingly, and general strengthen-
ing as well. But the fever persisted, and at one time
became so severe as to alarm the college authorities. An
upset in the icy water of the Cam was a setback. The attacks
COLLEGE DAYS 29
continued, first weekly, then fortnightly ; and not until well
on in the second year did ordinary health return, and
working powers get their fair chance. After this Bose seems
to have become immune to malaria ; but insomnia, whether
as accessory or as an acquired habit, lingered for six or
seven years, and at times of overwork this has ever since
more or less threatened to return.
Nowadays recalling symptoms, kindred cases very
largely fatal, the place of origin, and other circumstances,
it seems probable that this illness was no ordinary fever,
but ' Kala-azar/ still a serious and recurrent pest, of Assam
especially, though nowadays becoming amenable to treat-
ment, and happily still more to prevention.
The first batch of students who called on the new-comer
were a rather fast set, and Bose was gently lectured by
his tutor, who advised him as a stranger to drop these
acquaintances, and for good. After this came a period of
shyness and solitude ; but with the second year, with
returning strength, the merry company of hall dinners, and
what not, the enjoyment of college life and companionship
really began ; and a wide circle of acquaintances was
formed, and a few friendships. His range of contacts was
widened beyond the college through a natural science
club, with active meetings for papers and discussions, and
abundant comradeship and gaiety. Though after nearly
forty years most old acquaintances have vanished or been
forgotten, a few cordial recollections survive, as notably of
Theodore Beck, afterwards Principal of Aligarh College,
and of D'Arcy Thompson, since at Dundee and St. Andrews.
Of Shipley too (now head of Christ's), though senior to
him, he has warm memories, and of a few others now
scattered through the professions, and mostly lost sight
of. Among other friends were Fitzpatrick, afterwards
an active physicist and master of Emmanuel College, and
Reynolds Green the botanist.
The first summer vacation was spent in the Isle of
30 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
Wight, in the main pleasantly. But on too adventurous
a solitary rowing outside Shanklin Bay he got caught in a
squall, and had a very hard three hours' struggle to return,
with constant risk of upset ; hence a new increment of fever,
though happily with a kindly landlady to nurse him. The
next summer included a couple of months as one of a small
college party tramping in the Highlands, of which the
Trossachs are best remembered ; while the last long vacation
was spent in degree work at Cambridge.
At the outset of these Cambridge studies Bose was still
perplexed as to his course, and uncertain of his aptitudes,
and he adopted the plan of going as fully as possible to the
courses of science lectures ' a perfect orgie of lectures '
and with these to as many laboratories as possible. And
with good results ; what better teacher could he have had
for Physiology than Michael Foster, or for the Embryology
than Francis Balf our, then at the very height of his brilliant
powers. Geology too had its interest, both from Professor
Hughes and his kindly and hospitable wife ; and so on.
But after the middle of the second year, he settled down
to regular work in Physics, Chemistry and Botany. Of
Professor Liveing's chemical course, the stimulus to spectro-
scopy is specially remembered. Vines' lectures and labora-
tory of Botany were also much appreciated, and Francis
Darwin's first course of Vegetable Physiology was given
before he left. But most educative and decisive for the
future physicist was the teaching of Lord Rayleigh, whose
admirably patient and careful experimentation, to the most
scrupulous accuracy, with every factor of disturbance
allowed for or compensated, and all with correspondingly
clear and careful explanation, produced a profound im-
pression, which has been lifelong. Coming after Father
Lafont's experimentation, which had been so brilliant and
illuminating, and thus the best of introductions to physical
science, was this complemental instruction needed by the
more advanced student that of the minutest painstaking,
so necessary when dealing with large problems, and ensuing
COLLEGE DAYS 31
discovery. And though our student's own original powers
had not yet appeared, as indeed seldom happens so early
in life, his work satisfied his teachers : as was evidenced
first by his Cambridge degree in the Natural Science Tripos,
and that of B.Sc. taken at London about the same time and
without further work. In later life Bose's friendly con-
tacts developed, with cordial subsequent encouragement of
his investigations, as these began to appear in later years ;
and of these old teachers Lord Rayleigh and Professor
Vines have been actively appreciative of his researches
in Physics and Vegetable Physiology respectively, through-
out their long series, and sponsors for their presentation
to the Royal and Linnean Societies. With Francis
Darwin, too, cordial relations have been maintained ;
and now and then an old acquaintanceship is revived.
CHAPTER III
EARLY STRUGGLES
THRICE armed with good degrees, from Cambridge and
London in addition to the initial Calcutta one, young Bose
felt it time to return to India, towards which not only
family ties and homesickness, but increasing family cares as
well, had long been straining him. Four years is a long
exile, in youth especially ; and now, at nearly twenty-five, we
have the almost grown man ready and eager for a career.
Fortunately for him, Professor Fawcett the economist, then
Postmaster-General, who had kept up an old acquaint-
ance with Bose's much senior brother-in-law the late
Mr. A. M. Bose, afterwards a Calcutta barrister, and a
man of much note and a leader of public' opinion in his
day, still warmly remembered wrote spontaneously, in-
viting him to call. After this Fawcett asked his colleague,
Lord Kimberley, then Secretary for State for India, if he
knew., of any appointment in the Education Department ;
but none was then intimated, so he could only advise him
to go home to India and see. Fawcett gave young Bose
an introduction to Lord Ripon, then Governor-General,
and this he presented at Simla on his journey home. The
reception was of the kindest, and the Viceroy promised
to nominate him for the Educational Service. Yet in course
of the conversation he suddenly broke out, in full bitterness
of disappointment : ' My life here has been a failure : I
wanted to serve India, and to give Indians more responsi-
bilities. At first all seemed promising, but then came this
32
EARLY STRUGGLES 33
Ilbert affair ! I never thought our English liberal tradition
could be thus abandoned ! '
On reaching Calcutta Bose called on the Director of Public
Instruction, who had already received, through the Govern-
ment of Bengal, a letter from Lord Ripon recommending
him to them for an appointment. The Director was none
too pleased, and blurted out, ' I am usually approached
from below, not from above. There is no higher-class ap-
pointment at present available in the Imperial Educational
Service. I can only offer you a place in the Provincial
Service, from which you may be promoted.' Bose declined
this offer. Noticing that Bose's appointment had not been
gazetted, the Viceroy wrote to the Government of Bengal
for an explanation of the delay. This pressure from above
highly irritated the Director. When Bose saw him in
answer to his letter, he told him that his hand had been
forced, and he would offer him an appointment in the
higher service, but that it would be only an officiating
appointment giving no claim for permanence. If Bose
satisfied the test of service, he would then consider the
question of making his appointment permanent.
There was also a strong doubt, not to say prejudice,
against the capacity of an Indian to take any important
position in science. Intellectual acuteness in Metaphysics
and Languages had always been frankly acknowledged, but
it was assumed that India had no aptitude for the exact
methods of science. For science, therefore, India must
look to the West for her teachers. This view was accepted
by the Government, and so strongly maintained in the
Education Department that when Bose was appointed
Officiating Professor of Physics in the Presidency College,
its Principal protested against this appointment on the
above grounds.
Thus opens a chapter of Bose's life in which the writer's
condition of personal freedom has most definitely decided
him to disregard the reticence of his sitter, who would
fain let bygones be bygones right and proper on personal
34 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
grounds though that be, and at an age when even the
sharpest wounds of battle have healed. But the writer is
interested in his subject on more than personal grounds,
and has so undertaken it ; in fact, at every point on
genera] grounds also, and equally as regards Bose's con-
structive work in science, his attitude in education, anJ
his linking of Eastern with Western thought and culture.
For these reasons, and in this spirit, old difficulties, other-
wise too controversial and personal, have here to be noted
and frankly discussed.
To understand not only the immediate situation, but
much that follows, the writer may explain that he writes
peculiarly on his own responsibility, as a lifelong student
of Universities, and with more than five years' acquaint-
ance with Indian ones. To begin with, the non-Indian
reader must understand that while the Indian Civil Service
is open to any Indian who can win his place by examina-
tion in it, and who thereafter is on the same scale of
status and pay as his English colleagues, the Higher
Education Service is accessible only by nomination ; and
these posts, with extraordinarily rare exceptions, had not
been given to Indians, even of the highest European
qualifications. In general, the Indian professors, though
of the very same duties and responsibilities, formed the
' Provincial Service/ with much lower pay. Promotion
from this service to the higher branch is nominally possible
to all distinguished members of the Provincial Service, but
it is practically extremely rare. So much has this been
the case that even the chemist who is now at the head of
his subject in India, as Bose in physics although coming
back to India with his Doctorate in Chemistry, won with
high distinction, showing the promise he has since amply
fulfilled, and appointed to the Presidency College was
never promoted to the full position. Yet for many
years he did the teaching and examining work without
European colleagues, and has besides won European
reputation by his discoveries. In the writer's opinion, it is
EARLY STRUGGLES 35
to this unfortunate system that the lower general level of
individual studies and of original productivity, in com-
parison with the staffs of other Universities in the world,
which of all things in India has most surprised and dis-
appointed him, is plainly not a little due. In the Civil
Service, at the Bar, or on the Bench, European and Indian
must and do work together ; yet in every University and
its colleges, where unity of working is the daily necessity,
and should be far easier of attainment, they are practically
segregated into two distinct racial camps, and thus with
deterioration of the one and depression of the other, and with
diminished values to both and diminished respect from their
students, who are too much dissociated from both camps
accordingly. If and when real efficiency of higher educa-
tion, with corporate spirit and active intellectual life, are
to be adequately realised in India, this system will have
not only to be abandoned in its working but transformed
in its spirit. Indeed, one very real reason for the writer's
undertaking this biography, beyond the great contributions
Bose has made to the advancement of science, is found in
his efforts towards raising and maintaining the professorial
standard and ideal above and beyond racial difference
altogether. And while this chapter is being completed,
the writer is gratified to find that this invidious distinction
has been officially removed thanks, in great measure, to
the life-work of Bose, not simply as a man of science, but
as an educationist with fearless advocacy of this and
other needed improvements in higher education as recently
demonstrated before the Indian Services Commission.
To return to Bose. Young educational officers used.
to be sent out to the provincial colleges ; and it was after
experience and approved services that they were brought
to the Presidency College, which has long been reckoned
the premier educational institution in India. The students
of this college were anything but tame. They were indeed
highly critical of the teaching power of their professors. They .
had earned for themselves the reputation of an independence
36 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
which had been too readily interpreted as a spirit of in-
subordination, and thus were sometimes driven towards it.
An unfortunate altercation had occurred between two
English professors and their students, and had gone to
such a length as to force the Government to appoint a Com-
mission of Inquiry. Strong feeling had been engendered;
and no more difficult test could have been imposed than
to hold the wilder spirits in check and discipline. The
conditions which confronted Bose in the beginning of his
career might well have daunted the most resolute. We
shall see later that on these were superposed others, against
which he had to struggle for many years to come.
When Bose joined the service, an Indian professor's
income, even if in the Imperial Service, was two-thirds
that of a European's. (Bose succeeded later in getting this
distinction abolished.) After entering on his duties, Bose
found that this two-thirds pay was to be further reduced
by one half, since his appointment was only officiating.
In other words, he was to get one-third of the pay normally
attached to the office hitherto. From the first he was very
clear as to his course that of performing all that could be
asked from him and more ; but at the same time he resolved
to do all in his power throughout his career towards
raising the status of Indian professors. With this com-
bination of personal pride with loyalty to his countrymen
and colleagues, he decided on a new form of protest, and
maintained it with unprecedented definiteness and per-
tinacity. As his protest was disregarded, he resolved never
to touch the cheque received by him monthly as his pay ;
and continued this for three years, with what privations
accordingly need not now be entered into, save with a word
of appreciation for his wife's brave acceptance of them.
Bose was confronted with other difficulties. The
family fortune was now at its lowest ebb. Of the many
projects started by his father some turned out to be highly
successful from the beginning : among these may be
mentioned the People's Bank, which was the forerunner
EARLY STRUGGLES 37
of the later Co-operative Societies. He had taken many
shares in this Bank, as became its active founder. The
shares of the Bank rose* high before many years, and it is
now one of the most successful concerns in its line. Had
he kept those shares, he and his family would have been
permanently provided for ; but, always generous to a
fault, he gave away his shares to poorer friends. The
burden of other industrial and agricultural ventures which
were not immediately successful fell on him. Moreover,
he stood as security for others who had started kindred
enterprises, and ultimately the responsibility of these fell
on Mr. Bose ; and thus young Bose more and more realised
that he must put his whole mind and effort to extricate his
father from this heavy burden of debts. He took matters
personally into his hands and, going straight to his ancestral
home, parted with all the property which the family pos-
sessed. None but an Indian can realise the shock to the
family honour of parting with ancestral property that has
been hallowed by the memories of forefathers ; for in India
this is a general feeling, and not simply that of aristocratic
tradition. All the relations came to dissuade him from
this humiliation, but Bose was adamant in his resolve.
All the landed properties were sold, and their proceeds
paid to the creditors. This cleared off 50 per cent, of the
debt. Then he appealed to his mother ; for according
to Hindu law a wife's property is held sacred, and the
husband, or his creditors, can on no account estrange it.
She had held this aside for her son's return, but when
that son wished to face the future undaunted, the mother
became no less heroic in her sacrifice. Her personal property
was disposed of ; and the total clearance was now 75 per
cent, of the principal and accumulated interest. The
creditors, touched by this determination of the family to
do their very utmost, expressed themselves fully satisfied,
and accepted the unexpected instalments as payment in
full. But young Bose had a different view on the subject,
which he kept to himself. For the next nine years he
38 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
struggled ; until, out of his own earnings, the balance of
the 25 per cent, which the creditors had renounced was
paid them in full.
As regards Bose's work at the Presidency College, where
his capacity for teaching and maintaining discipline was
to be tested, his influence over the students became estab-
lished from the first day. The usual device of taking
daily roll to enforce regular attendance at the classes was
found superfluous ; and so interested did the students
become in his lectures that there used to be a struggle for
securing front seats for better view of the experiments.
The cram books, formerly used for memorising purposes,
were soon discarded as unnecessary. His old students,
even those who in later life have taken up other professions,
still recall with delight, as the writer can testify, the
permanent impression made on them by his direct and
vivid method of teaching.
After three years' work in this temporary post, both the
Principal (Mr. C. H. Tawney) and the Director of Public
Instruction (Sir Alfred Croft) came fully to realise the
value of Bose's professorial work, and to understand his
character, and they became henceforth his staunchest friends.
The Director had found that Bose could be inflexible when
questions of principle were concerned. Bose on his part
also realised more fully than ever that the best way to
get on with an Englishman is to stand up to him. The
same man, when firmly stood up to by the Indian, may
not only become his personal friend, but be substantially
improved thereafter in his ideas and manner. This matter
is important ; and we may later note one or two other
instances of it among the many which have arisen in
Bose's career.
In consequence of this change of view of the Director,
Bose's appointment, by help of a special order from the
Government, was not only made permanent, but this
with retrospective effect. He therefore received his full
EARLY STRUGGLES -59
pay for the last three years in a lump sum, which was
promptly made over to his father's creditors. The balance
was gradually cleared off in the course of the next six years.
After the discharge of the debt, his father survived only
for a year, and his mother for two years more. They did
not live to see their son's scientific success. Many years
later, the people of Faridpur asked Bose to speak at the
fiftieth anniversary of the Exhibition and Mela founded
by his father. His address was on ' A Failure that was
Great.' It told the story of his father's efforts and
initiatives, and the too frequent unsuccess of his sowings.
Here are the concluding words :
A failure ? Yes, but not ignoble nor altogether futile.
And through witnessing this struggle, the son learned to look on
success or failure as one, and to realise that some defeat may be
greater than victory. To me his life has been one of blessing,
and daily thanksgiving. Nevertheless everyone had said that
he had wrecked his life, which was meant for greater things.
Few realise that out of the skeletons of myriad lives have been
built vast continents. And it is on the wreck of a life like his,
and of many such lives, that will be built the greater India
yet to be. We do not know why it should be so ; but we do
know that the Earth-Mother is always calling for sacrifice.
The memory of those whose love had filled his life has
thus been a lifelong inspiration. But his future struggles were
to be not for professional survival nor for family honour ;
and on his thirty-fifth birthday, November 30, 1894, he fully
resolved that his life henceforth was to be above all dedicated
to the pursuit of new knowledge. Within three months of
this resolve, with no laboratory to speak of, and with
the help of an untrained tinsmith, he was able to devise
and construct new apparatus for his first research on some
of the most difficult problems of electric radiation. Success
was immediate : and in the course of a year the Royal
Society undertook the publication of his investigations,
and offered help from their parliamentary grant for their
continuation. In recognition of the value of his researches
40 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAQADIS C. BOSE
the University of London conferred on him its Doctorate of
Science without examination. Lord Kelvin wrote to him in
1896 that he was ' literally filled with wonder and admiration :
allow me to ask you to accept my congratulations for so much
success in the difficult and novel experimental problems
which you have attacked.' M. Cornu, the former President
of the French Academy of Sciences, and a veteran leader
in this field of physics, also wrote him early in 1897, saying
that ' the very first results of your researches testify to your
power of furthering the progress of science. For my own
part, I hope to take full advantage of the perfection to which
you have brought your apparatus, for the benefit of the
Ecole Polytechnique and for the sake of further researches
I wish to complete/
Scientific success had come unexpectedly to him : how
was he to accept it ? -Not in a .spirrt^pf mere personal
gratification : but as_encouragement to jncessant work,
which shoukLwin for hiscolnTtrvmenrrecognition of their
capacity for science, and -stir -them to like effectiveness^
The dream of establishing an Institute of Science came to
him at this time, with its hope that others might by it be
saved from the harassing difficulties that had so long con-
fronted him. But he was too proud to ask help towards
realising his vision, which appeared to others as a mere dream.
What could be done must be done by himself, and at his
own risk. He and his wife therefore once more accepted
the continuance of their life of economy, almost of privation,
so that he might some day be able to help on the needed
modern revival of the ancient scientific tradition of India.
From these days, and for the next quarter of a century,
that has been the goal on which his mind has been con-
centrated ; and the many papers and books he has produced
are best understood as steps towards the creation of the
Research Institute he has at last fully initiated.
A word now of the conditions under which research
had to be carried out. The feeling of the Education Depart-
ment had long been unfavourable ; the two friends he had
EARLY STRUGGLES 41
at length made, the Principal and the Director, were retiring
from the service ; and now Bose's success kindled hostility
which more or less persisted. The departmental view was
that the teaching of classes was the whole duty of a pro-
fessor, and that research must therefore involve neglect of
his proper function : even this in spite of his giving, with
characteristic thoroughness and pride, twenty-six hours
of weekly lectures and demonstrations in the College,
although the average performed by his colleagues was very
much less. Hence the only time to carry on investigations
was after the long day's teaching and preparation work
were over. No grant was available for research ; Bose, from
his own slender income, had to find means for the con-
struction of his apparatus and the payment for assistance.
But hopefully for Bose, the interest of his work, and
its high appreciation by leading Western men of science,
attracted the notice of the Lieut enant-Governor of Bengal.
He understood the higher function of a University : that it
was not mere routine teaching which in India especially
had too much become the encouragement of cram for the
passing of examinations but the training of students in
clear and constructive thinking, and towards the advance-
ment of knowledge. He realised the difficulties under which
Bose was labouring, and therefore arranged for the creation
of a new post with higher emoluments, with more initiative,
and with reasonable leisure for research. The duties of this
post were to be the organisation and development of labora-
tories in the many and widespread colleges under the
Government, and the personal training of advanced students
for original investigations. The scheme was sanctioned,
and Bose was informed that he would receive the formal
letter of appointment in the course of a few days.
But at this very time a matter came up which nullified
all these hopes. Bose was a Fellow of the Calcutta
University, which, though supported by the Government,
is so far an independent body. Bose had formed very
definite views with regard to the duties -he owed tp his
42 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
College under Government, and those which he owed to
the University in his independent capacity as one of its
fellows. While his new appointment was waiting final
sanction, a question came up before the University, in which
the majority of officials under Government held very
pronounced views. Bose was present at the University
meeting, and in his vote he did not follow the lead of his
official chief. The new appointment proposed for him
was immediately cancelled.
On a subsequent occasion he was informed by a Govern-
ment Secretary that there was a matter before the Univer-
sity in which some of the members of the Government were
especially interested. Bose could not attend on the day
on which the matter was decided, and he was requested
to submit an explanation. In reply, Bose wrote inquiring
whether, in attending any meeting of the University, the
Government expected him to vote on the particular side of a
question which might be advanced by his official superiors,
irrespective of any opinion which he might form as a result
of the discussion. If, in following an independent course,
the Government thought that he was not properly dis-
charging his duties as a Fellow of the University, he begged
permission to resign his Fellowship.
The Lieutenant-Governor, to whom the matter was
referred, appreciated Bose's point of view, but could not
overcome the opposition of the Education Department in
giving sanction to the new appointment. He, however,
thought it just that Bose should be recouped for the great
expense he had incurred in course of investigations which
had redounded to the credit of the Indian Government.
An official communication reached him that the Govern-
ment was willing to pay the expenses he had incurred in
pursuit of his research ; but Bose, while expressing gratitude
for this consideration, declined to accept any remuneration
for his past work. The Government then sanctioned an
annual grant of Rs. 2500 (166) towards the outlay for
his future research carried on at the Presidency College.
EARLY STRUGGLES 43
But all this did not mitigate the pressure of his daily
routine work ; and the concession which Bose most needed
for research was some relaxation from the excessive hours
of teaching above mentioned. It had been a great disap-
pointment that, after recognising the value of his services,
the new appointment that was contemplated should be
withdrawn because he could not always obediently follow
the particular views of his official superior in regard to
affairs of the University. He had passed through years
of severe overwork and strain, and the hostile attitude of
the Department had chilled the freshness and spontaneity
needed for all initiative work. He therefore waited on the
Lieutenant-Governor, and preferred a request that he should
be allowed the year's furlough which was his due, to enable
him to visit Europe and come in touch with other scientific
men and their work. The Lieutenant-Governor, who, as we
have seen, entertained a personal regard for Bose, was fully
sympathetic ; but knowing the slenderness of his means,
asked if it was not injudicious for him to venture on a
costly foreign visit, even though conducive to his scientific
work. Bose, with sudden impulse, inquired whether, in
these circumstances, the Government could not send him
to England on a scientific 'deputation/ The Governor
answered that the Imperial Government would never
sanction a deputation on a matter which was merely
educational. The Education Board at Simla had lately
issued a resolution expressing regret that India had never
taken to scientific pursuits, in spite of the efforts of the
Government, and Bose had naturally felt the injustice of
this ignoring of the scientific work he had been carrying
on at the Presidency College, which had had such wide
publicity in India since its appreciation in Europe. He
could not help expressing his bitter disappointment at
the contrast between such professions of desire for scientific
study and research by Indians and the real apathy of the
Education Board. The Lieutenant-Governor seemed irri-
tated by such plain speaking, and turned the conversation ;
44 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
so the interview was closed without definite result. Bose
had gone up to Darjeeling for the interview and was return-
ing next day to Calcutta. But as he was stepping into the
train a messenger brought him a letter from the Director of
Public Instruction, informing him that the Governor had on
his own responsibility decided to send him to England on
a scientific deputation for six months ; and that he could
therefore start for Europe any day that suited him. The
Lieutenant-Governor would telegraphically communicate
with the Government of India and the Secretary of State
in London.
The despatch which followed included the following
statement from the Director of Public Instruction, now
aroused to full support :
Dr. Bose's work is not merely the education of candidates
for University degrees, but the promotion of physical science
in a line which he has made peculiarly his own. To help him
in that is to promote the cause of science all over the world ;
and this, I assume, falls within the functions of the Government.
To this the Lieutenant-Governor added his own recom-
mendation that
he had done what he could to encourage and advance Dr. Bose's
researches, as he thinks it the duty of a great Government to do,
when it has a man of such exceptional qualifications on its
staff ; and he attaches much importance to Professor Bose's
visiting Europe and conferring with the leaders of scientific
inquiry there.
By sheer persistence of work, and by his personality, Bose
had thus won from Government a measure of recognition
and practical support for scientific work which was then
unique, and remains everywhere too rare . And the successes
which he has once and again achieved, even against depart-
mental difficulties, in winning appreciation and support
from his own Government, are so many points gained for
the cause of science all over .the world towards its more
adequate recognition.
CHAPTER IV
FIRST RESEARCHES IN PHYSICS
Electric Waves
Now an outline of Bose's first researches. Towards some
new age the progress of science and its applications
has been tending ever since the dawn of civilisation ;
and to-day, it may be, more than ever. In the past its'
growth has been too often like that of a coral reef storm-
beaten and broken, even subsiding : but now its workers
hope they are city-building for all time helping to erect
the ideal city of knowledge which should grow indefinitely,
though it can never be completely realised. Each of
its busy workers is searching and quarrying out, shaping
or laying his stone ; and at some point, and for its
moment, it rests on the highest edge of the rising wall.
But on this stone, so soon as accepted, others may
speedily follow ; and thus each sound and solid piece
of work is overbuilt, and so far surpassed. Each stone
commonly bears its own mason's mark, but the world cares
little for that : its brief glance of interest is naturally
enough on the handling of the new blocks as they are lifted
and laid on the wall-edge against the sky. At most there
can survive in history but a few individual names, whose
memory is preserved by the mighty columns they have
wrought ; while these again stand on earlier foundations
laid by toilers long forgotten, giants though they must
have been. Still the old masons know, and at times recall,
the significance of past work ; they review it and its doers
45
46 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
from the standpoint of permanent contribution, underlying
present superstructure and future alike. Hence, though
every science seems and so far is in continual change and
this often of style and aspect with each new group and
mood of workers its growth has yet a substantial unity.
In this way appreciation, such as the present, of a
notable living worker involves some brief mention of such
work of past years as is now fully taken into the general
structure, to support later work by successors' ; before we
come to the growing edge where he is actively employed.
Indeed, lower than these two levels we may sometimes find
a third, that of portions of wall with stones long laid, where
their worker has been interrupted, and where no one has
yet continued his task.
; In this comparison much of Bose's earlier physical
investigation naturally belongs to the first of these cate-
gories, that of accepted and established science, now fully
incorporated and utilised. His later work, that centering
around the Response to Stimulus of the Living and Non-
Living, is of the second category : where the builder is
conspicuously busy with his assistants on the growing edge
of science. To this we shall come in a later chapter ; but
there are also elements of his physical researches belonging
to the third category those still awaiting continuance,
whether by himself or others. For the moment then we may
look to the first and last-named of these categories, leaving
the second for later treatment.
From the previous chapter we see how little time for
fresh thought or experiment remained after long days of
three or four lectures, with usually more hours of apparatus-
making, and experiment-preparing, of lecture syllabus-
writing, paper-correcting, and so on ; and with evening
leisure disturbed too often by the various struggles of
academic existence above briefly indicated, and too long
fretted also by the struggle of paying off the debt of honour
from an income peculiarly modest. It was not until
1894, as already mentioned, when reaching his thirty-fifth
FIRST RESEARCHES IN PHYSICS 47
year, that Bose felt free enough definitely to start regular
work as an investigator; indeed on that birthday, Indian
fashion, he made to himself that vow. And, as we have
seen, he was well prepared, not only in physical knowledge
and experimental skill, but also in character, his initial
adventurous courage and strenuousness now matured and
strengthened by life.
In these years the most conspicuously interesting move-
ment in physics centred round the work of Hertz, the
brilliant and too short-lived experimentalist who produced
the electric waves which Clerk Maxwell, building in his
turn on the experimental work of Faraday, had predicted
mathematically, twenty years before, in his magnificent
correlation of light-waves with electro-magnetic disturbance.
So in the formative years of our investigator, as older readers
will remember, the Hertzian waves were the wonder of their
time, just as later the X-rays of Rontgen, and a little later
the magical radium of Madame Curie, and the later develop-
ments of that still branching investigation.
First, then, a word of explanation is needed before we
come to Hertz and his problem, much less to Bose's develop-
ment of it. In the previous generation Fresnel had cleared
the wave-theory of light, and enabled us to visualise it, in
terms of vibrations of the ether : but these not in longitudinal
pulsations like sound-waves in air, but transversal, like
the up and down movements which take place in the waves
of the sea, which travel fast and far without corresponding
movement of the water itself until it breaks upon the beach.
Throw a stone into a standing pool ; and watch the surface
rising and falling as the wave-circles extend to the bank ;
watch too how this reflects these wave-circles back into the
pond, and at angles varying with those of their incidence ;
and thus, in the minor infinities of intersecting ripples which
arise, we have a simple introduction to those intricate yet
orderly wave-motions of the ether which the physicist has
to assume as filling space, in order to realise the manifold
48 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
phenomena which appear in course of his study of light,
and which he can thus not only experiment upon, but explain
with mathematical clearness.
Contemporary with Fresnel, as mathematician of light,
was Ampere, the mathematician of electricity. He worked
out the laws of those mutual actions of currents which had
been discovered by the succession of brilliant experimentalists
up to Faraday. In thus rising from the experimental and
empirical level, and establishing Electro-dynamics as a
rational science, he naturally enough suggested that the
ether which carries the waves of light must also be the
vehicle of electric disturbances. But the testing of this
attractive hypothesis by experiment no easy matter was
next accomplished by Clerk Maxwell, who was rewarded by
the discovery that electrical disturbances travelled with the
same velocity as that of light a result concordant with
previous independent calculation of the speed of a current
through a perfectly conducting wire. That some intimate
correspondence must exist between electricity and light
could thus no longer be doubted. Maxwell's next step was
to reinterpret the familiar contrast of conductors and non-
conductors ; and now, instead of thinking the latter inert,
as scientific men had hitherto done (so that the reader may
be pardoned for perhaps still doing so), he reinterpreted
both together. The familiar copper wire is not a perfect
conductor, but has an appreciable resistance, of which Ohm
had already determined the simple law ; with progressive
loss of energy accordingly, which appears in the wire as
heating ; this raised to white heat gives us light as in an electric
lamp. The process of electric loss in production of heat,
Maxwell compared to what he observed when water is forced
through pipes, with friction and heat increasing as these
are narrowed ; and it is evident that since fluids are all
more or less imperfect (indeed water being a viscous fluid
compared with many others), the movement of the fluid
must sooner or later come to a stop, and all its energy
converted into heat. In short, then, the electrical
FIRST RESEARCHES IN PHYSICS 49
resistance of conductors can be thought of as a viscous
resistance.
What now of that of non-conductors ? This term is also
relative, since these differ among themselves ; and hence at
first they were thought of as but extremely bad conductors.
But here Maxwell had a fresh idea, that of their non-con-
ductivity as by no means comparable to an exaggerated
viscosity, but of a contrasted nature, like the resistance
offered by elastic springs, which do not waste the kinetic
energy expended on them into friction and heat, but store
it as potential, in their coils, as far as the structure of these
allows ; and then give it out anew, as the pressure upon
them is reduced or withdrawn. Thus while the familiar
current of conduction along a wire goes on as Jong as its
electro-motive force continues, the currents of displacement,
which Maxwell's speculative eye discovered in the non-
conducting body (answering to the metal springs of his
mechanical image above), can but have a short duration,
for their distortion soon comes to an equilibrium, of electro-
static energy. Now imagine the coiled springs to break,
or burst free ; there is a sudden and complete discharge of
their energy a process obviously sharply contrasted with
that dissipation into heat which we find in conductors
carrying a current.
Thus Maxwell escaped from the old and merely negative
view of the non-conductor as a passive obstacle ; and saw
it thrilling with its own internal currents of displacement,
like the rapid oscillations of a mass of springs. But ordinary
currents manifest themselves (i) by being wasted into heat
by the resistance due to the imperfections of the conductor,
(2) by their action on the magnet, so conveniently shown
by introducing a galvanometer into the circuit, and also
(3) by their induction of currents in conductors in their
neighbourhood. So if Maxwell's hypothetical currents in
non-conductors really exist, they must have these pro-
perties ; but so rapid are their oscillations, and so brief
is their duration,, that no ordinary experiment can detect
9
50 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
them. Still, with the reasoned certitude of his mathematical
treatment, Maxwell stuck to it that the currents are none
the less there ; and so framed his electro-magnetic theory
of light. For now, from this point of view, the light- waves
of the ether, already lucidly but separately visualised
and measured by Fresnel and others, may be interpreted
as the product of rapidly alternating currents set up in the
dielectric ether (and as it were the oscillations of the elastic
springs) and thus carried through space. The mathe-
matical mind was impressed by Maxwell's theory and its
calculations ; but neither physicist nor plain man could
be satisfied without concrete proof, through experimental
demonstration. But how reach experimental mastery
and understanding of alternating currents and oscillating
discharges of such high frequency as is required by
the known velocity of light about 300,000 kilometres
(186,000 miles) per second ? And with -the numberless
waves in that second, when even the longest visible red rays
are pouring upon our retina every second at the rate of at
least 25,000 crowded into every inch of that vast distance ;
and those which affect the photographic plate are more
than twice as many in the same time ? The difficulty of
experiment is here obvious. Still, experimenters set to
work ; and Feddersen, working with the Ley den jar,
photographed its long-known spark, by help of a rapidly
revolving mirror. Now if this discharge be a continuous
one, the photograph would be that of a luminous streak,
like that of a star slowly photographed while the earth turns
round. But the photographs showed successive firefly-
like flashes, proving the intermittency of the discharge,
and the photographs of sparks showed these as not homo-
geneous, but as symmetrically contrasted, the bright points
at one end corresponding to dark points at the other, and
conversely. Here, then, was clear ocular demonstration
that the discharge, which to our eye seems but a
single and instantaneous spark, is really a succession of
sparks, in oscillation between positive and negative. This
FIRST RESEARCHES IN PHYSICS 51
oscillation was next lucidly imaged by Kelvin, as the swing
of ' the electric pendulum/ But is the energy of these
electric oscillations simply dissipated through resistance,
and into heat, as in the incandescent particles of the spark
we see ? Maxwell had predicted that there must also be
some such radiation for electric waves ; so here arises an
experimental test between his theory and preceding ones,
by which no such phenomenon had been imagined, or is
even possible.
Here then is where at length Hertz came in, soon
with decisive experiments. First he had to devise a fresh
apparatus for exciting the oscillating discharges more
steadily and more rapidly (a shortened electric pendulum,
as it were), and with the discharges more fully under
observation and control. In this he succeeded, but not
without great difficulties, traced especially to the uncertain
and irregular behaviour of the brass balls between which
the oscillating discharge took place. But next, how was he
to know whether the electric waves, which Maxwell had
foreseen, and which he was seeking for, were really being
projected into space from his radiator's oscillating dis-
charge, or no ? Here, obviously, he needed some kind of
receiver for the anticipated rays ; and to contrive it was
a new and perplexing experimental problem. His method
was to place in the path of the expected rays an exploring
apparatus a pair of closely approximated metallic rods,
in which the rays should induce an electric tension ; which
should then, when strong enough, give minute sparks
between its adjacent poles. Alas ! no spark could be
observed ; yet Hertz was not discouraged. Realising that
such induced currents must needs be extremely small, he
had recourse to the microscope. The poles could thus be
brought to within a minute distance ; and then he had the
joy of success, for a minute but unmistakable spark now
appeared with every impulse from the exciting apparatus
at some distance off. Here, then, in this tiny spark was at
once the success of the primary experiment so long needed
52 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
for the demonstration of Clerk Maxwell's theory, and the
corresponding justification of the young experimenter's
labours ; at once raising him from the level of the many
dreamers and inventors whom most men despise or ridicule
before they succeed, to that pinnacle of success which
compels respect and arouses admiration.
Turn now from experimental process and details to*
appreciate the magnitude of Hertz's result, his proof of
the real and objective existence of this new range of ethereal
vibrations. Not simply as a joy for the mathematicians,
whose vigorous method, in Maxwell's powerful hands
that of imaged conception, strongly guided L and^boldly
driven had thus triumphed, as dramatically as ever
of old, say for the first verified prediction of an eclipse,
or in later days by the telescopic finding of a new planet
in the very place where calculation foretold its presence.
Yet the main wonder remained the physical one. For here
on one side is light, on which our intellectual life, no less
than our practical life, so intimately depends, and as to
which, moreover, we have the fullest and longest, the most
varied yet also most exact, knowledge of any of the forces
of nature. But there on the other hand are the phenomena
of electricity and magnetism, so potent and yet so subtle,
so varied and complex, so paradoxical, so obscure and even
mysterious; and so long defying ordinary representation
and visualisation wellnigh altogether. Heat too is organi-
cally familiar to us ; and its measurement and observation
have been increasingly in progress for centuries. The
identification of radiant heat with light, as but a continued
spectrum of ultra-red rays, had been in its time, and not
so long before, one of the great advances of discovery one
readily and essentially connected too with the all-embracing
doctrines of energy, so far in its conservation, but especially
in its dissipation. The small visible spectrum into which
Newton's prism spread out a beam of white light, though
ranging through the whole pageant of colour, from red to
Violet, had been shown to be but a single octave of a
FIRST RESEARCHES IN PHYSICS 53
vaster spectrum, of cosmic radiation ; witness the additional
octaves of shorter and shorter ultra-violet (photographic)
rays, and corresponding octaves of heat-waves longer than
the lowest visible red. But now far below these heat-rays
of the great spectrum, large by comparison with those of
light (which range from 60,000 to 25,000 to the inch), Hertz
had experimentally produced new rays altogether, whose
existence, and to some extent therefore their light-wave-like
behaviour, had indeed been foreseen by Maxwell ; yet with
strange and varied properties he had not foreseen, and soon
capable of applications which would have surprised and
delighted him as much as any. To realise the enormous
magnitude of Hertz's waves, as compared with those of
the longest heat-rays known, we. must leave their scale, that
of known ether- waves hitherto, and compare them with the
big waves of sound, slow-moving through our atmosphere,
-a heavy and viscous fluid unlike the imponderable and
elastic ether. Taking, then, the ordinary velocity of sound
in warm weather at 1200 feet per second, and the range
of audible vibrations at from 16 per second for deepest
note and 30,000 for highest a wide range of no less than
ii octaves we have about 70 feet for the largest and
lowest appreciable sound-waves, and say 4 inches for the
shortest and highest. But even Hertz's shortest waves
when measured turned out to be about 4 yards, and his
longest waves ranged to hundreds of yards, while evidence
was soon forthcoming that this immense electric spectrum
could be extended in both directions, not only shortening
towards the heat spectrum, but lengthening also to an
unknown immensity of magnitude.
But Hertz, while thus triumphantly vindicating Max-
well's main life-labour, was still only at the opening of the
full verification necessary. Given these electric waves,
even with their enormously longer wave-length than light,
must they not behave like light ? If so^ one would expect
them, in the first place, to be variously transmissible i.e.
some bodies should be transparent to them, some absorbent
54 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
and opaque, and some midway translucent, as it were.
Experiment immediately justified these anticipations,
although, as a physicist would be prepared to expect, with
different media than for ordinary light. Thus a sheet of
water is opaque to the electric waves, while glass and
pitch turned out alike to be transparent to them.
The next question is naturally Can these waves be
reflected, like light ? With big plane mirrors, sheets of
zinc and other metal, reflection was found to take place ;
but not with the precision of optical phenomena, in which
the angle of reflection is exactly equal to the angle of inci-
dence, whereas here the reflection was spread out. But
this too was only what was to be expected from the large
size of waves. Indeed, though light is propagated recti-
linearly, a certain curl of its waves inwards on passing an
obstacle has long been known to take place ; and this
' diffraction ' has been beautifully investigated, experi-
mentally and mathematically. On the great scale of Hertz's
waves, comparable to those of sound indeed far surpassing
these, since ranging from several metres, the shortest he
produced, up to two hundred yards, or thence again to even
a mile it was natural that their rectilinear propagation
should be but relative, and that they should curl round
corners, just as sound-waves do.
Hertz next tested whether Newton's classic experiment
the refraction of light by the prism could be repeated
with his new rays. But for their immense and spreading
magnitude, a correspondingly large prism was needed, on
a scale beyond that of glass-casting. Still, Hertz rose to
the occasion, and cast a gigantic prism with some two tons
of pitch. Experiment rewarded him : the electric rays
were unmistakably bent towards the base ; and though his
measurements with such long and curling waves were
naturally but a first and rough appproximation, the great
thing was proved the expected refraction did take place,
and that very appreciably. Thus encouraged, Hertz set to
testing whether his electric rays could not also be polarised,
FIRST RESEARCHES IN PHYSICS 55
like those of light. For the polariser and analyser of the
optician, he employed grids of metal, each a row of parallel
wires, and found that electric vibrations parallel to these
were absorbed, while those at right angles to the wires could
pass through. When the two gratings were parallel, the
electric beam passed through ; but when placed at right
angles to each other, it was completely stopped, just as for
light with the crossing of Nicol's prisms. Broadly then,
Hertz's comparison of the new electric rays with light was
so far complete, and the confirmation of Maxwell's theory
accordingly.
There remained of course much to be done : both as
regards the improvement of the whole range of apparatus
in detail, and the increased precision of research towards
bringing in other considerations which hold good in
the case of light, not to speak of unknown developments.
There can be no doubt that Hertz would have gone further
in such directions ; but at this stage his weak health
doubtless overstrained by those years of intense thought
and labour, aggravated more or less by neglect gave way ;
and he died of an ailment even then rarely fatal, and now
easily treated by the surgeon the consequence of a mere
nasal catarrh. The regret throughout the scientific world
for this early loss has rarely been paralleled the only fully
analogous case within the writer's memory being that of
Francis Balfour, the embryologist of Cambridge, in an
Alpine accident now some thirty-five years ago. But, as
Hertz had wished, the path was opened ; and able physicists
entered on it, first to test and verify, then to extend the
investigation in new directions. The first defect to be
grappled with was the uncertain behaviour and irregularity
of discharge of the balls between which the oscillating dis-
charge took place. Hence to improve this portion of the
apparatus to ensure ' good ' sparks without ' bad,' has been a
main endeavour for subsequent investigators. Here Lodge
and Bose were specially successful : the first by intro-
ducing an intermediate ball, which served as a regulator of
56 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C, BOSE
the discharge, and the second by the use of platinum-covered
surfaces, from and to which the alternating sparks could
pass without roughening or oxidation. Bose's radiators,
instead of being disordered by specks of dust, as previous
workers had found, continued to emit their sparks, and
these their waves, so steadily as to be uninterrupted even
when a jet of air mingled with street-dust was turned upon
it. Bose also used for his radiator a sphere surrounded
by two hollow hemispheres. This device increased the
energy of radiation.
Further advance of the determination of the optical
properties of electric radiation by quantitative measure-
ments have been retarded, since on account of the large
size of the waves their strictly linear propagation could not
be secured. Bose was able to produce extremely short
waves, which largely filled up the gap between the infra-
red rays and Hertz's long electric waves.
For this purpose, the whole of the radiating part of
the apparatus was enclosed within double metal walls
to cut off stray radiation : the outer of copper to prevent
the escape of the electric rays, and the inner of soft iron as
a shield to cut off the magnetic disturbance.
The next problem before experimenters was to im-
prove upon Hertz's receiver. Here the initiative was
afforded by Professor Branly, of the Catholic University
College of Paris, whose ' radio-conductor ' has since become
so well known. In principle it is merely a slender tube
containing metal filings, in which, although themselves
good conductors, there is yet considerable resistance, since
their contacts are comparatively few, and these variably
imperfect. But Branly found that the Hertzian waves,
which could not but produce considerable induction in
the filings, enormously reduced their resistance, some-
times even to a millionth. Hence it followed that the
apparatus could be used as the needed improved receiver,
'since detecting the electric rays more finely and more
clearly than did the first receiver of Hertz. After the
FIRST RESEARCHES IN PHYSICS 57
filings have thus acted, a tap suffices to shake them back to
their former irregularity, and the apparatus is ready for
the next experiment.
Lodge made able use of this simple expedient ; he also
offered an interpretation of its action, as due to. fusing or
soldering of the minute points of contact of the filings
by the inductive effect produced in them through the
incidence of the Hertzian waves, and for this reason he
renamed it a 'Coherer/ Branly, however, maintains the
original name, with his explanation that the Hertzian
waves merely modify in some ways the non-conducting
film upon the surface of the filings. Bose's receiver a
great advance on that of Branly and Lodge, of which the
sensibility is variable, sometimes even seeming capricious-
replaced the irregular filings by fine wire spiral springs,
adjusted with a thousand regular contacts or thereabouts,
and fixed in ebonite, and under control by a screw, A weak
current is passed through this, to which the spirals offer
a very appreciable resistance. The current is enormously
reduced, as with Branly's apparatus, but now even more
sensitively and more regularly when the instrument is
placed in the path of the electric waves ; the more since
the electric beam of Bose's generator is not only sharp and
well defined, but better regulated. The sensibility of
this apparatus, says M. Poincare (to whose clear treatise
the writer' is much indebted), f is exquisite: it responds
to all the radiations in the interval of an octave. One
makes it sensitive to different kinds of radiations, by vary-
ing the electromotive force which engenders the current
which traverses the receiver.' Bose also was successful in
inventing other types of receivers which recovered auto-
matically without any tapping. It is also well worth notice
that the whole apparatus has thus not only been Improved
by Bose and perfected in all details, but condensed from
the enormous dimensions of Hertz's original devices, and
-the still very considerable magnitude of those of Lodge and
other investigators, to a small and compact set of .appliances,
58 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
which stands conveniently upon one end of a writing-table,
and may be packed into a suit-case, and thus carried and
exhibited to any audience.
Bose had now made himself the best equipped among
physicists in this field of investigation. For with the
most perfect production of rays, and these under the fullest
control, it was possible to work towards shorter and shorter
waves, less dispersive in their diffraction, and producible
as a definite beam of half -inch section. Furthermore, his
receiver not only surpassed previous ones in that sensibility
which is so great in all forms, but what is more important
in its certainty and uniformity of action. His problem
thus admitted of fuller and clearer statement, and*came
substantially to this : Hertz's study of the electric waves,
and still more his comparisons of their behaviour with
optical phenomena, were more or less qualitative. But
' science is measurement ' : it must have quantitative
precision ; and for this purpose more regular waves must
be produced, and as near those of heat and light as
may be i.e. as short as possible. With the perfected
apparatus Bose carried out his extended investigations on
the optical properties of the electric rays. The scheme
adopted was as follows :
(a) Verification of the Laws of Reflection (plane
mirror, curved mirror).
(b) Phenomena of Refraction (prisms, total reflection,
opacity caused by multiple refraction and reflec-
tion ; determination of the indices of refraction).
(c) Selective Absorption (electrically coloured media).
(d) Phenomena of Interference (determination of
wave-length).
(e) Double Refraction and Polarisation (polarising
gratings, polarising crystal, double refraction
produced by crystals, by other substances, and
by strain ; circular polarisation ; electro-polari-
PROFESSOR J. C. BOSE'S FRIDAY EVENING DIS-
COURSE ON ' ELECTRIC WAVES ' BEFORE THE
ROYAL INSTITUTION (1896).
FIRST RESEARCHES IN PHYSICS 59
scope and polarimeter ; rotation of plane of
polarisation.
Fully to summarise the results of this comprehensive
experimental inquiry is here impossible : enough to borrow
from a recent retrospect of it by an eminent American
physicist, Dr. Kunz of Illinois University :
Bose showed that these short electrical waves have the same
properties as a beam of light, exhibiting reflection, refraction,
even total reflection, double refraction, polarisation and rotation
of the plane of polarisation. The thinnest film of air is sufficient
to produce total reflection of visible light with its extremely
short wave-lengths ; but with Bose's short electric waves, the
critical thickness of the air-space was determined by the
refracting power of the prism, and by the wave-length of the
electric oscillations. He found a special crystal, Nemalite, which
exhibits the polarisation of electric waves in the very same
manner as a beam of light is polarised by selective absorption in
crystals like Tourmaline, which Bose found to be due to their
different electric conductivity in two directions. The rotation
of the plane of polarisation was demonstrated by means of a con-
trivance twisted like a rope, and the rotation could be produced
to left or right, just as different sorts of sugar rotate the plane
of polarisation of ordinary light towards one direction or the other.
The index of refraction of these electrical waves was determined
for different materials ; and a difficulty was eliminated which
presented itself in Maxwell's theory, as to the relation between
the index of refraction of light and the dielectric constant of
insulators. Bose also measured the wave length of the various
oscillations. In order to produce the short electrical oscillations,
to detect them and to study their optical properties, he had to
invent a large number of new apparatus and instruments ;
and he has indeed enriched physics by a number of apparatus
distinguished by simplicity, directness, and ingenuity.
So far the American physicist. But for the conclusion
of this chapter we may best quote one of Bose's own
passages, which better unveils the spirit which lies behind
research : in fact the part of the scientific imagination
which ever unifies reason and experiment alike.
5p LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
Imagine a large electric organ, provided with an infinite
number of stops, each giving rise to a particular ether note.
Imagine the lowest stop producing one vibration in a second.
We should then get a gigantic ether wave 186,000 miles long.
Let the next stop give rise to two vibrations in a second, and
let each succeeding stop produce higher and higher notes. What
an infinite number of stops there would be ! Imagine an unseen
hand pressing the different stops in rapid succession, producing
higher and higher notes. The ether note will thus rise in fre-
quency from one vibration in a second, to tens, to hundreds, to
thousands, to hundreds of thousands, to millions, to millions of
millions. While the ethereal sea in which we are immersed is
being thus agitated by these multitudinous waves, we shall
remain entirely unaffected, for we possess no organs of perception
to respond to these waves. As the ether note rises still higher
in pitch, we shall for a brief moment perceive a sensation of
warmth. This will be the case when the ether vibration reaches
a frequency of several billions of times in a second. As the note
rises still higher, our eyes will begin to be affected, a red glimmer
of light would be the first to make its appearance. From this
point the few colours we see are comprised within a single octave
of vibration from 400 to 800 billions in one second. As the
frequency of vibration rises still higher, our organs of perception
fail us completely ; a great gap in our consciousness obliterates
the rest. The brief flash of light is succeeded by unbroken
darkness.
How blind we are ! How circumscribed is our know-
ledge ! The little we can see is nothing compared to what
actually is !
\But things which are dark now will one day be made clear.
Knowledge grows little by little, slowly but surely. Many
wonderful ,, things have recently been discovered. We have
, already caught broken glimpses of invisible lights ; some day,
perhaps not very distant, we shall be able to see light-gleams,
visible or invisible, merging one into the other, in unbroken
sequence.
CHAPTER V
'"'.'' - -'
FURTHER PHYSICAL RESEARCH AND ITS APPRECIATION
Boss's scientific results, given in the last chapter, passed
rapidly into current science, and its text -books, English
and Continental, through a series of papers communicated
to the Royal Society by Lord Rayleigh, whose constant
sympathy was the best of encouragements for the young
investigator. A reprint of Bose's collected Physical Papers
may some day be published, and lead to further develop-
ment of some of their inquiries, whether by Bose, his pupils,
or others.
The main results of all these papers were also popularised
in the standard way through various lectures, concluding
with one of that series of Friday Evening Discourses at
the Royal Institution, which has so long given one of
the very best of platforms for the announcement of fresh
investigation.
The invitation to deliver this discourse so impressed
the India Office that they granted Bose three months'
extra deputation leave, which admitted of its preparation
and delivery. Its reception was fully appreciative. The
scientific public had been fully prepared to be interested
in the work, not only by the Royal Society papers, and the
publication of full abstracts and appreciative articles in
the Electrician and other technical journals, but from Bose's
first appearance in England at the Liverpool meeting of
the British Association. After Bose's paper there, Lord
Kelvin not only broke into the warmest praise, but limped
61
62 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
upstairs into the ladies' gallery and shook Mrs. Bose by
both hands, with glowing congratulations on her husband's
brilliant work. Moreover, the general press and the public
were struck by him as the first Indian to win distinction
through investigation in science in the most strictly
Western of all its departments, and at that time also the
most progressive.
The preceding generation had handed on many recol-
lections of the achievements of applied physics, beginning
with the laying of the first transatlantic cable, which
had brought Sir William Thomson (afterwards Lord
Kelvin) into fame, after which came successive marvels,
such as electric light, the telephone, the phonograph,
Rontgen rays, and more. Now a new marvel was silently
preparing to break upon the world the application
of Hertz's waves to wireless telegraphy, towards which
Hertz seemed to have some premonition and various later
investigators were feeling their way, as notably Lodge,
and above all Marconi. Bose himself had as early as
1895, in a public lecture in Calcutta, demonstrated the
ability of the electric rays to travel from the lecture-
room, and through an intervening room and passage, to a
third room 75 feet distant from the radiator, thus passing
through three solid walls on the way, as well as the body of
the chairman (who happened to be the Lieutenant- Governor).
The receiver at this distance still had energy enough to make
a contact which set a bell ringing, discharged a pistol, and
exploded a miniature mine. To get this result from his small
radiator, Bose set up an apparatus which curiously antici-
pated the lofty ' antennae ' of modern wireless telegraphy
a circular metal plate at the top of a 20-foot pole being
put in connection with the radiator and a similar one with
the receiving apparatus. Encouraged by this success, our
inventor not only went on signalling through the College
but planned to fix one of these poles on the roof of his house
and the other on the Presidency College a mile away ; but
he left for England before effecting this.
FURTHER PHYSICAL RESEARCH 63
On the publication of Bose's papers on Electric Waves,
The Electrician, in its review (December 1895), drew attention
to the practicability of devising
a practicable system of electro-magnetic ' light '-houses, the
receiver on board ship being some electric equivalent of the human
eye. The evolution of a suitable generating apparatus would,
we thought, present little difficulty ; that of a suitable receiver,
on the other hand, seemed likely to give considerable trouble.
In this connection we would draw attention to the substantial
and workmanlike form of ' Coherer ' devised by Professor Bose,
and described by him at the end of his paper ' On a new Electro-
Polariscope.' The sensibility and range of this type of ' Coherer '
would appear to leave little to be desired, and it is certainly
more likely to withstand, with equanimity,' the thousand and
one shocks that the flesh is heir to at sea, than any of the forms
hitherto brought about.
And subsequently, after Bose's Friday Evening Dis-
courses at the Royal Institution, The Electric Engineer
expressed ' surprise that no secret was at any time made
as to its construction, so that it has been open to all the
world to adopt it for practical and possibly money-making
purposes/
Bose has sometimes, and not unnaturally, been criticised
as unpractical for making no profit from his inventions.
But as to this he was determined from the first. His
child-memory had been impressed by the pure white flowers
offered in Indian worship ; and it came early to him
that whatever offerings his life could make should be
untainted by any considerations of personal advantage.
Moreover, he was painfully impressed by what seemed to
him symptoms of deterioration, even in scientific men, by the
temptation of gain ; and so at this time he made the resolve
to seek for no personal advantage from his inventions.
In 1901 one of the great manufacturers of wireless
apparatus proposed to Bose, just before his Royal Institu-
tion lecture of that year, to sign a remunerative agreement
as to his new type of receiver ; but to the business man's
frank surprise, not to say disgust, he declined the offer.
64 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
An American friend, indignant with what seemed such
unpractical quixotism, forthwith patented the invention
in his name in America, but Bose would not use his rights,
and allowed the patent to lapse. As a consequence, his
improved coherer came into use till a fresh device was
adopted in its stead.
It may be frankly admitted even in some cases main-
tained that under present industrial and economic
conditions it may be practically impossible to organise
and apply certain useful and desirable inventions without
conforming to the customary rules of the game. After
full recognition of the prevalent economic situation, it has
been necessary to explain Bose's position as that of no
mere quixotist. Simply stated, it is the position of the
old rishis of India, of whom he is increasingly recog-
nised by his countrymen as a renewed type, and
whose best teaching was ever open to all willing to accept
it. It also concurs with that of the modern pilgrim
of a later chapter and of the boy growing up in the
enthusiasm of the antique poetry and chivalry of the
past, whose acquaintance we made at the beginning.
Towards the close of Bose's stay in England in 1897,
he was invited to explain his results in Paris by prominent
members of its Physical Society, and also by the leading
physicists of Berlin. At the Societe de Physique the chair
was taken by M. Cornu, who had been President of the
Academy of Sciences, a veteran investigator in optics
and electricity, whose generous appreciation remains one
of Bose's most valued reminiscences. Lippmann, already
famous through his inventions in colour-photography,
Cailletet, who had made one of the first successes in the
liquefaction of gases, and others of foremost rank were
present. Lippmann and others were so enthusiastic as to
insist upon a later demonstration in the Sorbonne ; and
soon afterwards Bose was made an honorary member of
the Societe de Physique.
FURTHER PHYSICAL RESEARCH 65
In Berlin his discourse was to the Academy of Sciences,
which printed his comprehensive experimental summary.
To this discourse not only the Berlin physicists turned
out, but some from a much greater distance : thus old
Professor Quincke of Heidelberg, who had been greatly
interested in the subject and had endeavoured to
construct Bose's apparatus, came all the way expressly
to hear him, and to invite him to visit his laboratory.
At Berlin, Helmholtz's successor, Professor Warburg,
told another investigator who was asking his advice
about taking up electric waves : ' Bose has left you
practically nothing to do : better try something else/
A visit to Kiel to lecture before the University and to
meet Ebert, a notable worker in Electro-magnetism, and
next a pleasant stay in Heidelberg to visit Quincke, Lenard
and others, completed this tour ; and Bose then started
homewards from Marseilles.
From the above account of the success of Bose's scientific
deputation to Europe, it will be seen that the long-standing
prejudice which the West had entertained regarding the
incapacity of Indians to do advanced scientific work
was removed. Bose was in fact here the pioneer
who succeeded in breaking through what had so long
seemed a closed door, and thus opened the highway into
active and productive science for his countrymen.
Referring to Bose's work, Sir Henry Roscoe, the Vice-
Chancellor of the University of London, acknowledged that
the Eastern mind was equally capable of making great
scientific discoveries and producing experimentalists as
eminent as those of the West. And Lord Reay, the former
Governor of Bombay, representing the statesman's point
of view, drew attention to the importance of India's
contribution to science : ' For science was absolutely
international, and any result obtained by Dr. Bose in India
could at once be annexed by us without protest.'
Not only were scientific men impressed by the importance
66 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
of such collaboration of the East in the advance of science,
but enthusiasm was aroused in the most unexpected
quarters. The London Spectator had consistently main-
tained a critical attitude towards Indian aspirations ; but its
editor was drawn by curiosity to attend Bose's discourses
at the Royal Institution ; and in the following week a
long leading article appeared, from which the following is
an extract :
There is however, to our thinking, something of rare interest
in the spectacle there presented, of a Bengalee of the purest
descent lecturing in London to an audience of appreciative
European savants upon one of the most recondite branches
of modern physical science. It suggests at least the possibility
that we may one day see an invaluable addition to the great
army of those who are trying by acute observation and patient
experiment to wring from Nature some of her most jealously
guarded secrets. The people of the East have just the burning
imagination which could extort a truth out of a mass of
apparently disconnected facts ; a habit of meditation without
allowing the mind to dissipate itself, such as has belonged to
the greatest mathematicians and engineers ; and a power of
persistence it is something a little different from patience
such as hardly belongs to any European. We do not know
Professor Bose ; but we venture to say that if he caught with
his scientific imagination a glimpse of a wonder-working ' ray '
as yet unknown to man but always penetrating ether, and
believed that experiment would reveal its properties and poten-
tialities, he would go on experimenting ceaselessly through a
long life, and, dying, hand on his task to some successor, be it
son or be it disciple. Nothing would seem laborious to him in
his inquiry, nothing insignificant, nothing painful, any more
than it would seem to the true Sanyasi in the pursuit of his
inquiry into the ultimate relation of his own spirit to that of the
Divine. Just think what kind of addition to the means of
investigation would be made by the arrival within that sphere
of inquiry of a thousand men with the Sanyasi mind, the mind
which utterly controls the body and can meditate and inquire
endlessly while life remains, never for a moment losing sight
of the object, never for a moment letting it be obscured by any
terrestrial temptation.
FURTHER PHYSICAL RESEARCH 67
We can see no reason whatever why the Asiatic mind, turning
from its absorption in insoluble problems, should not betake
itself ardently, thirstily, hungrily, to the research into Nature
which can never end, yet is always yielding results, often evil
as well as good, upon which yet deeper inquiries can be based.
If that happened and Professor Bose is at all events a living
evidence that it can happen that would be the greatest addition
ever made to the sum of the mental force of mankind.
And more briefly The Times wrote :
The originality of the achievement is enhanced by the fact
that Dr. Bose had to do the work in addition to his incessant
duties as Professor of Physical Science in Calcutta, and with
apparatus and appliances which in this country would be
deemed altogether inadequate. He had to construct himself his
instruments as he went along. His work forms the outcome
of his twofold lines of labour construction and research.
Many of the leading scientific men wished to show their
appreciation of the value of Bose's work in a practical way.
Their natural spokesman, Lord Kelvin, strongly realised
the all but impossible conditions under which that work had
hitherto been carried out ; and he wrote to Lord George
Hamilton, then Secretary of State for India :
It would be conducive to the credit of India and the
scientific education in Calcutta, if a well-equipped Physical
Laboratory is added to the resources of the University of Calcutta
in connection with the Professorship held by Dr. Bose.
Following on this letter a memorial was sent, drawing
the Secretary of State's attention
to the 'great importance which we attach to the establishment
in the Indian Empire of a Central Laboratory for advanced
teaching and research in connection with the Presidency College,
Calcutta. We believe that it would be not only beneficial in
respect to higher education, but also that it would largely
promote the material interest of the country ; and we venture
to urge on you the desirability of establishing in India a Physical
Laboratory worthy of that great Empire.
68 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
Among the memorialists were Lord Lister, then President
of the Royal Society, Lord Kelvin, Professor Clifton, Pro-
fessor Fitzgerald, Dr. Gladstone, Professor Poynting, Sir
William Ramsay, Sir Gabriel Stokes, Professor Silvanus
Thompson, Sir William Riicker, and others.
Impressed by all this, the Secretary of State sent a
dispatch (May 1897) to the Government of India enclosing
the memorial, and supporting it ' being of opinion that
the question of establishing an institution of the kind
mentioned is deserving of consideration by Your Excellency
in Council/
Lord Elgin, then Viceroy, told Bose that the Government
was interested in his project, and would communicate with
the Government of Bengal. This came filtering through
departmental channels, with the appended note that
though the scheme was important, yet it might be
postponed to a future date. Bose understood what this
really meant. He had succeeded in making the India
Office and the Government recognise the claims of science ;
but he also realised that the Government working machinery
could be effectively delayed by departmental cogwheels.
His friends in England were anxious to hasten matters at
headquarters, if he would let them know what was causing
delay. But that would have meant dropping his work
of research for an indefinite period ; so he made up his
mind to face the old difficulties as best he could, and
be independent of facilities that the Government might
offer, but by which there seemed little chance of his
benefiting. It is worthy of remark that the cogwheels
suddenly became mobile when Bose had neared the period
of retirement from Government service. Then the scheme
for which he had striven for many years resulted in the
recent foundation (1914) of a fully equipped Physical
Laboratory. Though this came too late to be of much
advantage for himself, he had the consolation that he
had been able to leave the Presidency College better than
he found it. Pupils whom he had trained were now in
FURTHER PHYSICAL RESEARCH 69
charge of Physical Departments with Laboratories in
different colleges. His efforts had not altogether been
in vain.
Bose's attitude of detachment appeared quixotic
and unpractical to many, as other resolves had done
previously. Though he seems never to have evaded any
fight for principles, he was the more indifferent to personal
advantage. He answered the criticisms of his friends by
saying that he had long ago made up his mind to choose
not the easier but the more difficult path ; that appeared
to him the true scope for manhood.
But, although abandoning the advantage derived from
general recognition of his work towards securing facilities
for his own research, he continued his dream of securing
these for his successors ; and thenceforth was more resolved
than ever to establish a Research Institute, as far as might
be through his own savings and efforts. Again he and his
wife curtailed their expenses, and religiously put aside a
portion of pay and other earnings, from University examina-
tions and from the proceeds of books and lectures. These
he invested in securities which fortunately for him trebled
in value after twenty years. A windfall also came, and in
an unexpected way. By seniority, and by the distinction
of his service, the highest appointment in the Educational
Service, the Directorship of Public Instruction, had come
within his reach. But he preferred to remain at the
Presidency College as a Professor of Science. Here too
seniority entitled him to the highest grade, with correspond-
ing rise of pay. Bose, with customary indifference, had never
consulted the Civil List. Had he done so, he would have
found that his promotion to the top of the Service had been
long overdue. For their own reasons the Department had
not informed the Government about this promotion : only
on the eve of his retirement the claim of a junior officer was
brought to the notice of the Government, which then
inquired why the question of the prior claims of Bose had
not been reported. As no satisfactory explanation was
70 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
forthcoming, the Government gazetted Bose to the highest
grade, with retrospective effect. The large amount thus
received was fully credited to the account of the Research
Institute, which was to be materialised in a few years'
time. A legacy towards this also came from an old and
valued friend.
Regarding Bose's claim on Government for facilities of
research, it must be said to its credit that the idea was
not dropped altogether. Lord Curzon indeed, when Viceroy,
desired to revive it. But, as he was not a scientific man
himself, he sent a cable to four English men of science
for their opinion. The two physicist referees cabled their
highest appreciation of Bose's work ; but the other two
happened to. belong to the physiological camp (and as will
be seen later) hostile to Bose, and they opposed the
idea. In this .dilemma, where scientific opinion seemed so
evenly divided, the Viceroy, by way of compromise, con-
ferred on Bose at the Delhi Durbar in 1902 the decoration
of the Companionship of the Indian Empire.
CHAPTER VI
PHYSICAL RESEARCHES CONTINUED
The Theory oj Molecular Strain and, its Interpretations
RECALL now from Chapter IV the receiver of the electric
waves, the ' radio-conductor ' of Branly (called ' Coherer '
by Lodge, in terms of his simple and attractive thesis of
the fusing together of its metallic particles at their points
of contact by the inductive action of the electric waves).
Next recall the difficulties and irregularities of its action,
more or less felt by all observers, and notably abated by
Bose's form of receiver. Bose, as we have seen, succeeded
in making his electric wave receiver, at first made of steel
springs (afterwards electroplated with cobalt to avoid
oxidation), highly reliable. He was also able to devise
other receivers which, in addition to their extreme sensitive-
ness, exhibited automatic recovery. He could exalt the
sensitiveness of his receivers to any degree desired by slight
increase of pressure of contact, and by increase of electro-
motive force in the receiving circuit. But after these
improvements a new anomaly appeared. When experi-
ments had been carried on continuously for a couple of
hours or so, the receiver became less sensitive, and after
more prolonged work, still more so, reminding one of
fatigue. What could be the meaning of this fatigue ?
When the fatigued receiver was allowed to rest for several
hours, it became sensitive once more. Thinking, naturally
enough, that longer rest would render it still more sensitive,
Bose left the receiver aside for several days, with the quite
7 1
72 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGAD1S C. BOSE
unexpected and perplexing result that it had become
insensitive once more. This particular insensitiveness
could not, as in the case of fatigue, be restored by further
rest ; but he excited the ' idle ' receiver by an electric
shock, with the surprising result that its sensitiveness was
restored. Two altogether different treatments were thus
found necessary in the two cases : rest for the ' fatigued '
receiver, and active stimulation for the ' idle * one.
The theory of the ' Coherer ' was therefore inadequate ;
for if the diminution of resistance by external stimulus
were brought about simply by soldering of particles, such
diminution would be independent of the previous history of
the receiver, i.e. of its moderate rest, restoring sensitiveness
as if from fatigue, or of its prolonged rest, reducing this as
it were to idleness.
To explain these anomalies, Bose was led into
new and wide fields of investigation. Hence two
papers. 1 The terms ' Electric Touch,' or ' Contact-sensi-
tiveness/ were introduced to avoid the theory involved
in the term ' Coherer/ and also because the nature of
response depended on the surface of contact, and not on
the substratum. An insensitive metal such as copper,
when coated with a thin film of a sensitive metal like
cobalt, acquired extreme sensitiveness : whereas a highly
sensitive material like iron, when given a coating of an
insensitive metal like copper, gave little or no response.
Bose next embarked on a systematic investigation of the
contact-sensitiveness of all the metals, non-metals and
metalloids obtainable. Many of the rare metals were at
the time not available, but in some cases he isolated the
elements from their compounds in an electric furnace ;
and experimentally overcame many other difficulties
encountered at every step.
The investigations on metals were carried out in the
1 ' On a Self-Recovering Coherer/ Proc. Roy. Soc., 1899. ' On Electric
Touch, and the Molecular Changes produced in Matter by Electric Waves,'
Proc. Roy. Soc., 1900.
PHYSICAL RESEARCHES CONTINUED 73
sequence of their atomic weights from Lithium, with its
lowest atomic weight 7, to Lead, with high atomic weight
205. He was surprised to find that the ' electric touch '
exhibited a periodic change. When a substance exhibits
under electric radiation an increase of conducting power,
its sign of ' touch ' he distinguished as positive. This is
the strong characteristic of the ' Coherer ' made of iron.
This diminution of resistance was by no means general ;
his investigations revealed the astonishing fact that
potassium exhibited an effect which was diametrically
opposite, namely an increase of resistance. The receiver
made of potassium exhibited, moreover, a rapid and spon-
taneous recovery, requiring no tapping. It is quite evident
that an increase of resistance and automatic self-recovery
could on no account be due to the supposed fusion and
coherence of neighbouring particles by the induction-spark.
The response, positive or negative, is determined by the
chemical nature of the substance ; and the phenomonen
must therefore be one of molecular change.
In arranging the elements in order of their increasing
atomic weights, the ' Electric Touch ' was found, as stated
before, to exhibit a remarkable periodicity, approximately
represented in the accompanying curve (Fig. i).
Those above the horizontal line are positive, those below
negative, and others which cross the line more or less
neutral. Of the neutral substances, copper and silver
may be taken as typical.
There are other interesting differences in the behaviours
of different metals. In some cases the induced change of
resistance under electric stress was not permanent, but the
substance completely recovered its original condition. It
was as if the molecules were put under strain by the
impressed stress. Electrically some were highly elastic,
their recovery being quick ; in other cases less elastic, and
the strained molecules remained in that condition, the
recovery being extremely slow. In such cases, however,
anything which caused molecular disturbance e.g. the
74 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
action of warmth helped the automatic recovery. Even
substances like iron, which remained conducting as an after-
effect of electric stimulus, recovered automatically when
maintained at a higher temperature.
FIG. i. Periodicity of Electric Touch. Abscissa represents the atomic
weight ; ordinate the electric touch positive or negative.
From the observations of these various characteristics,
Bose was led to suppose that electric radiation produced a
molecular change of an * allotropic ' nature, similar to the
allotropic change induced in sulphur or phosphorus by
visible light.
The action of light on various kinds of matter is
familiarly known, though little understood. Everyone has
noticed how colours are often faded by exposure ; while
chemists have long known that common yellow phosphorus
PHYSICAL RESEARCHES CONTINUED 75
is transmuted into the red variety, less dangerous because
no longer liable to that rapid oxidation in the atmosphere
which may readily set the familiar variety on fire. Sulphur
exposed to light is not changed to the eye, but treat-
ment with bisulphide of carbon, so convenient a solvent of
common sulphur, proves that light has somehow rendered
it insoluble. To this phenomenon of ' allotropism ' we shall
return later : it is enough at first to note that the action
of light on bodies, though sometimes within our direct
observation, need not necessarily be so, yet may none the
less be real and profound.
But how shall we proceed to the investigation of these
changes ? how detect changes if they take place ? and
how discriminate between the exposed substances and
the unexposed ? The photographic plate is the familiar
instance in point ; but though chemists have endeavoured
to explain what happens (as by reduction of silver chloride,
and the reduction of this to metallic silver), the amount
of material altered is too small to admit of analysis
and verification. Bose showed how it can be detected
electrically, for which the galvanometer is sensitive to a
degree incomparably beyond that of chemical estimation.
Now the allotropic variation or change in molecular
aggregation in a substance must, according to Bose, change
more or less all its properties physical and chemical e.g. its
solubility, its density, its chemical activity, and its position
in the voltaic series in consequence of which a current flows
from electro-positive to the relatively electro-negative ; it
would also change its power of electric conduction. Note in
this connection the familiar difference of conducting power
in the three allotropic modifications of carbon. As charcoal,
its conducting power is high ; as graphite, its conducting
power is only moderate ; while diamond is practically a
non-conductor. Let us call these A, B, and C. If we
could produce any transformation of graphite (B) towards
charcoal (A), it would be detected by increase of con-
ducting power, and if towards diamond (C) by decrease
76 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. ROSE
The invisible molecular change may thus be detectible
by this subtle electric test, with its great advantage
over chemical estimation, which requires large quantities,
and long hours of analysis, during which the substance
may have automatically returned to its primitive state.
That allotropic transformation may electrically be
detected, is also seen in other ways. In a selenium cell
the incidence of light causes an increase of conducting
power ; and removal of light is attended by self -recovery.
If the stress has been moderate the recovery is quick ; if
very great, as by strong light, the recovery is very much
protracted. Nor is light the only agent of such allotropic
change ; heat-rays may also produce it. Thus ordinary
iodide of mercury spread out in a thin film is practically
a red pigment, but when exposed to heat radiation it
becomes transformed into a yellow allotropic variety. On
removal of the radiation the substance recovers, the recovery
being hastened by a mechanical scratch, and the thin
film becomes red once more. Bose found that this visible
change had as a concomitant, a change of electric resistance.
In summary, then, we find that in iron-like substances
with the positive ' touch ' the transformation is towards
an increase of conducting power ; and in potassium-like
substances, it is towards diminution. Just as all substances
as regards their magnetic properties fall into two classes,
para-magnetic or dia-magnetic, so all substances are
divisible into two classes, one exhibiting a positive and
the other a negative ' touch.'
Bose had here discovered new classes of electric
phenomena ; and these two classes of conducting bodies
(for only with conductors was experimentation found
possible) we may characterise as ' contact-positive ' and
' contact-negative.' In at least one almost neutral yet
slightly positive substance silver Bose succeeded in
producing by chemical means a negative variety, which
gave the negative response of diminished conductivity.
This variety was found Jess stable, since heating restored
PHYSICAL RESEARCHES CONTINUED 77
the new variety to the familiar one ; and on stimulation
he also found repeated reversals from + to , and back
again, thus giving an alternating curve. The change
induced in various substances by electric radiation seemed
to Bose plainly one of molecular strain in response to
external stress. So, he asked himself, do not such varia-
tions, sufficiently marked and permanent, give the physicist
a peep into the chemist's (hitherto empirical) collection of
' allotropic substances/ and even a method towards their
further investigation ? For if the transient allotropism
thus discovered be thought of as molecular strain, with
the possibility of recovery, then ordinary allotropism, so
relatively stable, becomes also comprehensible i.e. in
terms of over-strain, from which spontaneous return is
difficult or impossible under ordinary conditions.
This delicate mode of inquiry was rightly claimed
as ' full of promise in many lines of inquiry in molecular
physics. . . . The varieties of phenomena are unlimited ;
for we have in each substance to take account of the pecu-
liarity of its chemical constitution, the nature of its response
to ether waves, the lag and molecular viscosity. All these
combined give to each substance its peculiar characteristic
curve : it is not unlikely that the curves may give us
much information as to the chemical nature and physical
condition of the different substances.' Bose's new investi-
gations had been to disclose a new class of phenomenon
of which electro-optics had given no suggestion, those of the
different touch of metals, when employed as materials of
so many ' Coherers/ or rather receivers. Here, returning
to the chemical suggestions above noted, was an interesting
correlation of electric properties with atomic weights, and
the disclosure of a new arrangement of these accordingly
one not without suggestive analogies to MendeleefFs famous
classification, and inviting therefore fresh research.
Return now to the nature of the electric radiation
discussed in Chapter IV : first, as an extended spectrum
of longer and longer waves beyond those of heat, and yet,
78 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
as Maxwell had foreseen and Hertz had shown, analogous
to those of light ; and then with their correspondence,
increasingly determined by Bose's work, as regards their
reflection, refraction, polarisation and other phenomena
in short, an advance of electro-optics.
But now, leaving the direct study of the varied yet
profoundly similar rays of this long spectrum of radiation,
which we call ultra-violet, luminous, thermal and electric,
we come to a third class of problems touching the effects of
diverse radiation on different kinds of matter. As to the
effect of electric radiation, Bose was able to show that it
induces a state of temporary or permanent molecular strain
in matter attended by physical or chemical change in the
substance. Since electric waves have turned out to be so
similar in their nature and behaviour to those of light, may
they not also have molecular reactions more or less similar
to the photographic effect ? In the concluding part of
his Electric Touch paper, Bose says :
The effect of electric radiation (like visible radiation of light)
is to produce rearrangement of the atoms or molecules of a sub-
stance ; so does light produce new atomic or molecular groupings
in a photographic plate. The contact-points of the coherer
may therefore be regarded as corresponding to the particles
of a photographic plate. Investigation on this aspect of the
subject has given me some extraordinary results. They seem
to connect together many phenomena which at first sight do not
seem to have anything in common. I am at present trying to
arrange an apparatus which will, by means of the pulsating
galvanometer spot of light, automatically record the various
molecular transformations caused by external forces.
While the speculative hypotheses with which so many
fruitful investigations begin have to be experimentally tested
and verified before they can be published as contributions
to positive science, it is their inception and development
which are the main interest in any biographic treatment.
Moreover, is not this view of any investigator, as struggling
to criticise his dream, interesting and suggestive to other
PHYSICAL RESEARCHES CONTINUED 79
workers, and so to the teacher of science also ? The
workers in every laboratory are taught patient accuracy,
and so far so good ; but must we not encourage their free and
varied speculation as well ? Have not the great discoveries
been great dreams ? Are not Kepler's four laws the sur-
vivors of innumerable speculations some say hundreds, if
not thousands, of trials and guesses ? And did not Darwin
defend and recommend even ' fool-experiments/ as he called
them ? Many a new investigation has begun in this specu-
lative and tentative way.
A further perspective is here of interest. At first it
seemed as if the discovery of ' touch/ or contact-sensi-
tiveness, in the field of electric radiation had no parallel in
that of optics ; but now we see it leading back from newly
observed phenomena of electricity to the interpretation of
those produced by light, and ultra-visible rays. The funda-
mental unity of the long spectrum is thus further manifested
and from one of its known extremes to the other, from
electric to photographic.
By some instinct or foresight, Bose had already, in 1896,
when describing his receiving contact of the electric wave,
likened it to a ' photographic particle/ and that premonition
he was now able increasingly to substantiate. In a
paper which we have here no space to review ' The Con-
tinuity of the Effect of Light and Electric Radiation ' 1
it was investigated in many forms of matter, and further
generalised as well. Next, ' The Similarities between
Radiation and Mechanical Strains/ at first hypothetical,
were demonstrated experimentally, as by the construction
of a ' Strain-cell/ in which a sudden twist, through measured
angles, of one of two similar standard wires of any metal
immersed in water, was shown to produce a definite and
measurable amount of electro-motive force. The acted
wire usually behaves like the zinc plate of the ordinary cell,
but not always : some become copper-like. There are thus
two classes of bodies, much as we have seen for electric
1 Proc. Roy. Soc., 1901.
8o LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
radiation. The effects of recovery from moderate strain,
and of overstrain beyond speedy recovery, were also
noted.
Hence at length the interesting paper ' On the
Strain Theory of Photographic Action/ 1 which, despite
its technical detail, is in principle intelligible enough even
to the non-photographer. The photographic effect in a
sensitive plate is demonstrated by its ' development '
after exposure. This effect of light on sensitive substances
may be fugitive or persistent, with gradations between.
Bose's idea is that the image, with its lights and shadows,
produced differential strains on the sensitive matter
of the plate ; and that these differently light-strained
particles are consequently unequally attacked and fixed
by the developer. But if this image be correctly inter-
preted in terms of molecular strain, gradual recovery is to
be expected, with a subsequent fading of the image. The
early photographers, with their daguerreotypes, were much
troubled by this : hence subsequent photographic progress
has largely been through making plates of more enduring
quality. So that nowadays one goes on taking a series
of plates and films to be developed at leisure. Such
improved plates, on Bose's theory, simply delay or impede
the molecular elastic recovery of the variously strained
particles, which constitute the image, and hence give ample
time for its development. The term ' Sensitiser ' may
in many cases be a misnomer, since it may actually
cause a retardation of recovery.
But the time of recovery should have its limit, and
it is here interesting to note that experience confirms
this. After Bose's exposition of his theory at the
Royal Photographic Society, one of the audience told
how after a photographic tour in India the development
of a batch of plates had been delayed by circumstances
for two years. On then proceeding to develop, he found
no image at -all : and this he had till then thought of as a
1 Proc. Roy. Soc., 1901.
PHYSICAL RESEARCHES CONTINUED 81
mere spoiling by climate. But, as Bose's theory explains,
he now saw it as a recovery of the plates from their
image-strained condition. For some time later, wishing
urgently to take a photograph, at a moment when he had
not a single fresh plate available, it occurred to him, as a
mere chance, to try one of those spoiled Indian plates,
of which the development had been abandoned. To his
agreeable surprise the new photograph was successful
in fact, as if the plate had been a fresh one. He now for
the first time understood, and brought his experience
forward as a vivid confirmation of Bose's theory of strain
and recovery.
Substances may be sensitive, yet give no photographic
image. For on the same general view, since almost all
substances are molecularly affected by radiation, though in
different degrees, and with very different rates of recovery,
it is theoretically possible that we may alike vary the
sensitive material for our photographic images, and find
a widening range of developers for them. And in the world
of nature our conception of activities of radiant energies
through the whole spectrum, and of their effects upon
recipient matter, similarly expand thereby. And if this
is true throughout the range of inorganic matter, why
should it not hold good in the living world as well, sensitive
to radiation as we know it to be ? Here, however, we are
somewhat outrunning the paper before us, though not its
author's active mind.
As examples of sensitive substances other than photo-
graphic plates with their salts of silver, why not plates of
other materials ? Moser had already obtained invisible
images by prolonged exposure of clean silver and copper
plates, which he developed with mercury vapour ; and
Waterhouse had made similar experiments, even with
lead and gold, using the common developers. Since Bose
had found all metals sensitive to electric radiation, the
sensitiveness to light also was what he expected, while the
prolonged exposure found necessary was to provide the
82 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGAD1S C. BOSE
necessary strain in materials less sensitive to light than
are silver salts.
Mechanical pressures may also produce images capable
of development, the so-called ' pressure-marks ' ; and, by
electric strain, the ' inducto-scripts/
At this time (1901) Bose was interested in the question
of obtaining photographs without the action of light.
Various radio-active substances were being found whose
emanations affected the photographic plate. But Bose
worked with substances which ordinarily were not radio-
active. A section of a dried stem of a tree exhibits con-
centric markings, due to unequal growth in different
seasons ; these different rings, according to Bose, should
emit radio-active particles at different rates under the action
of stimulus. He enclosed a section of a stem in a dark
box, with a photographic plate in front of it, but not in
contact. Outside the box were two metallic plates, which
were in connection with a machine which caused rapid
electric oscillation in the intervening space. Under the
action of this stimulus the radio-activity of the wood was
evidenced by an extraordinarily clear impression of its
structure given on the photographic plate this, be it
remembered, without the intervention of light. The accom-
panying reproduction (Fig. 2) is the photograph of a leaf of
Bo-tree taken by the above method. By taking similar
photographs, he obtained remarkable results with various
stones and crystals, which revealed characteristic differences
in their composition. A new field of investigation was
opened out for immediate exploration ; but all this had
to be indefinitely postponed on account of another line
inquiry which, as we shall see later, demanded his
of undivided attention.
His theory of molecular strain, however, has been fruitful
in physical and chemical researches ; and subsequently
found corroboration from Hartley in his work on the
absorption spectra of solutions of metallic nitrates. In
summarising his results he refers to ' three remarkable
PHYSICAL RESEARCHES CONTINUED 83
communications by J. Chunder Bose published in the
" Proceedings of the Royal Society/' 1902. It is supposed
on good grounds that " the effect of radiation is to produce
a state of molecular strain." Experimental evidence is
adduced which shows that the molecular strain caused
FIG. 2. Photography without light.
by the action of light, changes the physico-chemical
properties of substances, so that it becomes possible to
develop a latent image through differences in chemical
stability as, for instance, by reducing agents.' Dr. Hartley's
own experiments lent strong support to this, for the spectra
obtained by him showed ' that the solutions of metallic
nitrates are in a state of molecular strain.' *
1 Journal of the Chemical Society, 1903.
84 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
Enough now of this theory of photography : we may
pass to Bose's ' Artificial Retina.' His various forms of
electric receiver were sensitive to the waves longer than
those of heat ; whereas the photographic plate is normally
sensitive only to the short waves towards the opposite
ends of the immensely long and varied spectrum. But, he
asked, may it not be possible to find substances of wider
and wider range of receptiveness ? The ideal substance
would be one sensitive through this enormous range, and
responding not only to our visible light, but to all the many
octaves of the invisible light, which stretch out on each
side of the single octave of our colour-sensation. Hence
a new and systematic series of tests of the range of
responsiveness of natural and artificial substances without
number, which is indicated, as begun, in the paper on
'Electric Touch,' but has never yet been completed and
published. Still, the desired substance was at length
found one so exquisitely sensitive to the long electric waves
as to supersede previous materials in the electric receiver
of wireless telegraphy, already mentioned ; yet giving also
the same unquestionable galvanometric answer to thermal,
luminous and ultra-violet rays.
To reduce this all-perceiving super-retina to the level
of our human perception was next easy ; for on placing
in front of it a flask of water, to represent the aqueous
humour, the electric and thermal rays are now absorbed,
and thus can no longer be responded to ; and similarly as
to some of the ultra-violet rays as well. Thus this ' retina '
could now practically only ' see ' the rays which are visible
to ourselves and signal their impulse to its galvanometric
' brain ' behind, while on removing the absorbent water its
innumerable octaves of wider perception were restored. As
Bose remarked, ' Perhaps we do not sufficiently appreciate,
especially in these days of space-signalling by Hertzian
waves, the importance of that protective contrivance
which veils our sense against insufferable radiance/ Here,
then, is a first -class example of ' the wonders of science ' ;
PHYSICAL RESEARCHES CONTINUED 85
in fact of its ' Natural Magic/ as the old physicist Porta
called his book, still memorable for his description of the
' Camera Obscura/ which is now reduced in size into the
photographic camera. The camera is indeed a sort of
giant eye ; and its sensitive plates are a kind of simple
and inorganic retina. Correspondingly, the eye is a camera,
and its / retina an organically elaborated sensitive plate,
subtly layered for the perception of different shades of light.
This further invention of Bose's incredible or un-
canny though to some it seemed at first comes into line
with our general and elementary understanding of eye
and camera alike : the wonder is in its immense range
of sensitiveness. Yet instead of finding any super-retinal
elaboration, well-nigh beyond microscopic inquiry, still
more beyond mere dissection, when we open the little globe
of the electric eye, and take away its lens, this amazing
super-retina turns out to be made but of two tiny crystals
of galena, adjusted to contact-sensitiveness. That this
common lead ore, this heavy sulphide, should of all known
things have fullest sensitiveness to all ether-waves, of nature
or of laboratory art, is worth reflecting on. Lead ' dull
lead ' is less dull than we think ! And the characteristic
response of the artificial retina next led Bose to discover,
as we shall see later, certain unsuspected phenomena in
human vision.
CHAPTER VII
RESPONSE IN THE LIVING AND NON-LIVING
INCREASINGLY throughout the preceding chapters there
have incidentally appeared various parallelisms between
the response of inorganic matter and phenomena we are
accustomed to consider as characteristic of life. Indeed,
but for the sake of brevity, these resemblances might
have been multiplied. Still, to our physicist they were
at first but incidental to his main inquiries. But as they
multiplied they also grew more impressive, more and
more close in their correspondence, and always under in-
vestigation of the same experimental and precise character
which marked the whole of the preceding physical work.
Such precision was in fact unavoidable, since these in-
creasingly physiological studies were carried on by exactly
the same methods as he had so often verified, and which
had become familiar and well defined. It is important to
note this : because so complex are the phenomena of life,
and so long have they been regarded as mysterious, that
biological speculation and even experiment is open to
suspicion of unsoundness, and not least among physi-
ologists in regard to each other ; and hence, at their
wisest, they are critical of themselves. It was with
this caution and self-criticism that Bose began ; and
not simply with a good deal of that fear and trembling
which every respectable specialist feels when he ventures
even to look over his neighbour's wall, still more to pluck a
handful of the roses which are overhanging into his garden.
86
RESPONSE IN THE LIVING AND NON-LIVING 87
For he had become fully aware of the commonly
held belief in the West that while the East excelled in
metaphysical speculations even to subtlety, it had no
special aptitude for methods of exact science. In fact
the capacity for concrete investigation was at that
time commonly reckoned as due to some phreno-
logical ' bump ' absent from the Indian make-up, and
towering dome-like upon the Western skull alone. Hence
Bose had, from his earliest days of physical work and
teaching, the ambition at once of justifying and reviving
the scientific aptitude of his countrymen, who moreover, as
their old art and commerce show, are not without practical
and skilful hands, and cannot have heads so exclusively
religious and metaphysical as the concentrated study of
Sanskrit literature had induced others to think. The
experimental rigour of Bose's work, and the exquisite refine-
ment, yet simplicity, of his apparatus, from this first wave-
transmitter and receiver to the unprecedentedly delicate
and exactly recording apparatus which his workshop keeps
increasingly turning out to this day, are thus explained.
And, as a matter of fact, the one criticism of the apparatus
and research in the Institute which the writer has ventured
to make from time to time is, that one might sometimes be
fruitfully enough working with this or that instrument
without the delay of demolishing and reconstructing it
for the sake of some, after all, minute percentage of extra-
exactitude. Yet he cannot but respect this also, and bear
his testimony to the physicist's precision, which can endure
no trace of inaccuracy.
Let us return, however, to the new investigation, into what
we may now begin to call ' the Response of the Living and
Non-Living,' since that became the title of the volume of
two years later, in which all these studies are summarised.
It yielded such abundant and surprising results that Bose,
for whom there was still no scientific public in India, nor
even a single colleague with whom he could discuss his
problems, was feeling the need of a new journey to Europe.
88 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
A very cordial invitation fortunately came from the Inter-
national Congress of Physics, which was one of the many
world-gatherings arranged at the Paris Exhibition of 1900.
The surprising results which Bose obtained had roused
the interest of the new Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, and
he decided to send Bose on a scientific deputation to Europe,
as his predecessor had done four years before. He believed
that ' the visit of Professor Bose to Paris will be of great
advantage to the singularly original researches in which
he is engaged.' Accordingly, Bose reached Paris in August
1900, as a delegate from the Governments of Bengal and
of India.
Bose read his paper on the Response of Inorganic and
Living Matter before the Paris International Congress of
Physicists (1900). * Reference has already been made to
Bose's observation of the curious phenomenon of fatigue
exhibited by the receivers of his electric waves ; and of how
fatigue was removed after a period of rest. The receiver,
however, became insensitive when left idle for too long a
period ; and in this latter case the inertness was removed
by the stimulus of an electric shock. In this paper, however,
Bose for the first time in science compares and parallelises
the responses to the excitation of living tissues with those
of inorganic matter.
A muscle-curve registers the history of the molecular change
produced by excitation in a living tissue, exactly as the curve
of molecular reaction registers an analogous change in an in-
organic substance. The two represent the same thing ; in the
latter the molecular deformation is evidenced by the change
of conductivity ; in the other the same deformation is mani-
fested by the change of form. We have thus means of study
of the molecular reaction produced by stimulus, of varying
frequency, intensity and duration. An abyss separates the
phenomena of living matter from those of inanimate matter.
But if we are ever to understand the hidden mechanism of
1 'De la Generalite desPhenomenesMoleculaires produits parl'6lectricit6
sur la Matiere Inorganique et sur la Matiere Vivante,' Congres Inter-
national de Physique, 1900.
RESPONSE IN THE LIVING AND NON-LIVING 89
the animal machine it is necessary to face numerous difficulties
which at present seem formidable.
Then follows ' a comparative study of the curve of
molecular reaction of inorganic and living substances.'
First a curve from magnetic oxide of iron (Fe 3 O 4 ), slightly
warmed, and then following it, one of the usual muscle
curves, showing - a striking general resemblance to the
former.
This leads to further study of the behaviour of the iron
oxide in comparison with that of muscle : (i) of the effect
of a superposition of maximum excitations ; (2) that of
summation of moderate excitations slowly succeeding each
other ; and (3) that of rapidly succeeding stimuli. 'Alike for
mineral and muscle, these effects are extraordinarily similar,
and their curves correspond so closely in fact that either
may be taken for the other. And in detail : (i) when the first
excitation is at maximum, no effect is in either case ob-
servable from a second stimulus ; (2) moderate excitations
are summated ; and when in slow succession, the effect of
each shock can be distinguished as steps in the ascending
curve ; (3) when the stimuli are very rapid, the effects are
combined, and the phenomenon known as tetanus appears
in both alike.
He also found that in many inorganic substances, when
ordinary stimulus produces the normal ' negative ' effect,
a feeble stimulus elicits the very opposite, i.e. positive.
He was long puzzled by the dual result, not simply as
being new to physics, but as yet without parallel in the
observed response of living tissues. But, he asked himself,
is this a real contrast between non-living and living ?
or may not farther experiment disclose an analogous dual
reaction in living things ? The inquiry led him to the dis-
covery of certain living reactions of high significance. These
will be treated later in greater detail.
Iron oxide, when warmed, gives an enhanced response
under stimulus ; and recovery is also much quickened ;
but only up to a certain level, when both are again
90 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
diminished. The same phenomenon is already well known
for muscle, which of course similarly has its optimum, beyond
which the response is diminished. Again, just as the
fatigue of muscle is removed by rest, or by the gentle
mechanical vibration of massage, or by variation of
temperature, as by a warm bath, so is it essentially with
the iron oxide. For this ' fatigue/ i.e. the diminution of
response, can be removed by treatments exactly parallel.
Next as to the effect of the injection of foreign sub-
stances. Potassium, as we have seen, has great electric
elasticity, and recovers from stimuli almost at once. But
when it is treated with certain foreign substances, its first
response appears unaltered, but in subsequent responses the
power of recovery is almost lost. Similarly with the effect
of certain poisons (e.g. veratine) upon muscle.
In all the phenomena above described continuity is not
broken. It is difficult to draw a line and say, ' here the physical
phenomenon ends and the physiological begins,' or ' that is a
phenomenon of dead matter, and this is a vital phenomenon
peculiar to the living.' These lines of demarcation would be
quite arbitrary.
We may explain each of the above categories of phenomena
by making a great number of independent hypotheses, or else
discovering a constant property of matter common to all its
forms, living and organised, dead and inorganic ; we may attempt
on the basis of this common property, an explanation of the
different phenomena, which at first seem so very different. And
in favour of this latter view we may invoke the general tendency
of science to seek, wherever facts permit, a fundamental unity
amidst the apparent diversity.
Bose's paper came as a great surprise ; and the Secretary
of the Congress declared that he ' at first felt stunned.'
The meeting soon realised the full importance of the
subject, and many of its members expressed themselves
enthusiastically over the new results. The paper was
regarded as one of the most important received by the
Congress, and it was published in its volume.
RESPONSE IN THE LIVING AND NON-LIVING 91
So much for the reception of these ideas among Western
men of science. Far deeper was the effect produced on
the thoughtful among his own countrymen. Europe was
still unconscious of a renaissance in India the uprising of
an intellectual activity which was gathering strength ; but
Indians rejoiced to find in Bose an exponent of the new in
science, whom the West could understand and appreciate.
Independent expressions of the feeling came ; Swami
Vivekananda, who had impressed America by his eloquent
enunciation of the philosophical and religious spirit of
Vedanta, was then in Paris, and went to hear Bose at the
Congress. In one of his letters (collected later as ' The
Wanderer ') he writes :
Here in Paris have assembled the great of every land, each
to proclaim the glory of his country. Savants will be acclaimed
here ; and its reverberation will glorify their countries. Among
these peerless men gathered from all parts of the world, where
is thy representative, O thou the country of my birth ? Out
of this vast assembly a young man stood for thee, one of thy
heroic sons, whose words have electrified the audience, and
will thrill all his countrymen. Blessed be this heroic son ; and
blessed be his devoted and peerless helpmate who stands by
him always.
In the field of literature Bose's lifelong friend,
Rabindranath Tagore, not yet known in the West, but
who had already given a deep impress to Bengali literature,
sent him as his letter from India, a poem, of which the
following extract is a close translation :
Whence hast thou that peace
In which thou in an instant stoodst
Alone at the deep centre of all things ;
Where dwells the One alone in Sun, Moon, flowers,
In leaves, and beasts and birds, and dust and stones ;
Where still one sleepless Life, on its own lap
Rocks all things with a wordless melody,
All things that move or that seem motionless.
92 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
Call thou thy scholar-band come forth
Out on the face of nature, this broad earth.
Let them all gather. So may our India,
Our ancient land, unto .herself return ;
O once again return to steadfast work,
To duty and devotion, to her trance
Of earnest meditation.
So far, then, goes the story of this Paris paper, told at
greater length than usual, alike on personal grounds and
because of its importance as including new departures. An
essentially similar paper was next read before the Physical
Section of the British Association at its Bradford meeting
in September in 1900, and was cordially received by
the physicists. At this meeting also several of the most
prominent of them suggested to Bose to offer himself as
candidate for an important chair of physics then vacant,
and with warm assurance of their support ; but Bose was
too loyal to his own country and University seriously to
feel the temptation, though he naturally appreciated the
compliment. A faint shadow was however felt by Bose
at this meeting ; for he noticed that while the physicists
were warm in their appreciation of his work, and readily
took up his interpretations, the members of the Physi-
ological Section, who had been invited to hear the
paper as is the custom when ' boundary questions '
are raised looked perplexed and kept silent ; the method
of experimentation, by this time familiar to the physicists
from Bose's previous papers, being strange and unfamiliar
to them. It may here be mentioned that this method of
' conductivity-variation ' has since been used with great
success in Bose's subsequent physiological work, and has
now found acceptance among vegetable physiologists ;
presumably by this time among animal ones as well.
Before leaving India, Bose had begun to suffer from
an illness which subsequently became serious, brought
on by too continuous fatigue and constant standing
at experiments. After being unsuccessfully treated in
RESPONSE IN THE LIVING AND NON-LIVING 93
Calcutta, it was neglected by the sufferer until he broke
down in London after the Bradford meeting, with the
result that two months were lost between operation and
recovery. But in this enforced idleness some further
thinking was done, with devising of experiment in ways
more familiar to physiologists. On recovery, he got to
work by December 1900, at the Davy-Faraday Laboratory
of the Royal Institution, to which he had been cordially
invited by his old friends and teachers, Lord Rayleigh and
Sir James Dewar. An assist-
ant was found, Mr. Bull to
whose punctual, intelligent,
and skilful carrying out of
experimental work Bose still
looks back with peculiar
satisfaction. For thus so
admirably seconded, the lost
time was rapidly made up,
and new experiments were
quickly carried out in many
new directions. On leaving
London, Bose was able to
interest his friends in finding
continued outlet for Mr.
Bull's abilities. He has since become head of the Photo-
graphic Department of the London Polytechnic, where
Indian students find from him a ready welcome.
This winter's work became more and more physiological ;
yet, looking at his problems from both sides, he was now
occupied not only with the physics of Physiology, but with
what we may call the physiology of Physics. The com-
parison of the responses of the living and non-living, out-
lined in the above Paris paper, was now attacked afresh,
by the electro -motive variation method, to which physi-
ologists were accustomed ; and the curves given by metals
and muscles were worked out afresh, and with a fuller
experimentation, including the effects of fatigue and of
FIG. 3. Electric response of metal
showing fatigue (tin).
94 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
stimulating, depressing and poisoning drugs. The non-
living and living alike gave responses which were essentially
similar.
Revolving these results in his mind, it occurred to Bose
in his constant alternation of self-criticism and cosmic out-
look, that if the striking continuity between such ex-
tremes as metal and
animal be real, then
a test should be
afforded by ordinary
plants, hitherto
reckoned as unre-.
sponsive. Full of
this idea, Bbse
rushed out into the
garden plot of his
London lodging and
gathered the first
leaves of its horse-
chestnut tree just
opening ; and on
testing one of them,
FIG. 4. Action of stimulant in enhancing ne found it respond
response of metal (platinum). In this . r
and in following records the first series Vigorously. He next
exhibit the normal response ; the subse-
quent series show the effect of chemical
agent.
found his carrots
and turnips despite the stolid and prosaic aspect by
which we have too long misjudged them turning out to
be highly sensitive, even in their very roots. Some sea-
kale, however, gave little or no response. On inquiry the
greengrocer explained that it had suffered on the journey
to London from a fall of snow; and fresh specimens on
a later day gave full response.
The normal similarity in the response of metal, plant,
and animal was thus established, by many tracings of their
curves ; and the next experiments were on the effects of
nff tn
greengrocer, and
RESPONSE IN THE LIVING AND NON-LIVING 95
narcotics and poisons. On application of chloroform, plant
response disappeared, just as it does for the animal ; and
with timely blowing off of the narcotic vapour by fresh
air, the plant too revived, and
recovered to respond anew.
Poison was applied to a fresh
specimen, and as it absorbed the
poison it exhibited a modification
of the curve of response extra-
ordinarily similar to that of the
dying muscle ; and for the plant
as for the animal, response came
to an end altogether an appar-
ently clear indication of death.
Various drugs, poisonous in
quantity, were found to act as
stimulants when given in minute
doses.
Now here comes in the value
of a fresh mind, untrammelled
by the customary prepossessions
of the biologist. Neither bot-
anist, zoologist, nor physiologist
had ever thought or from his
outlook would be likely to
think of attempting to poison
a metal : he would have con-
sidered the very idea of such
an experiment absurd. But here
the physicist, unburdened by biological tradition, and ruth-
less in his logic from previous experiences of unexpected
correspondence, made all these experiments, and on a
whole series of metals. Tin, zinc, brass, and even platinum,
were alike dosed in succession with various poisons ; with
the startling results of curves of response similar to
those of the poisoned plants and animals, and like
FIG. 5. Action of poison in
abolishing response of
muscle (uppermost
record), plant (middle
record), and metal (lowest
record).
96 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
them coming to an end. Oxalic acid was found specially
effective, to which tin, the most sensitive of metals, imme-
diately gave way : even platinum, chemically the most
inert of the noble metals, soon succumbed. Recalling
Darwin's observation of the stimulating action of ammonium
carbonate on the sundew, Bose tried this on his metals,
and with the surprising result of its augmenting their
normal response, even three- or fourfold. Again, toxic
FIG. 6. Stimulating action of minute quantity of ' poison ' which in
large doses abolishes the response of metal.
agents, which in large doses poison the plant, but in minute
doses stimulate it, were found to have precisely similar
effects upon the metals ; and similarly with certain other
drugs.
So striking was this correspondence, that one day when
Bose was beginning to show his records to Sir Michael Foster,
the veteran physiologist of Cambridge, the latter picked
up one and said, ' Come now, Bose, what is the novelty in
this curve ? We have known it for at least the last half-
century.' ' What do you think it is ? ' said Bose. ' Why,
a curve of muscle response, of course.' ' Pardon me ; it is
the response of metallic tin.' ' What ! ' said Foster, jump-
ing up ' Tin ! Did you say tin ? ' On explanation,
RESPONSE IN THE LIVING AND NON-LIVING 97
his wonder knew no bounds ; and he hurried Bose
to make a communication to the Royal Society, which
he (then Secretary) offered to communicate. Finding
that Bose was already invited to give an account of these
discoveries as a Friday Evening Discourse at the Royal
Institution, he said, ' Well, make us a preliminary com-
munication immediately, and thus secure your priority,
and that of the Society, and then you can give us a demon-
stration later on at the meeting next month.' This was
done.
In this Royal Institution discourse (May 10, 1901)
Bose marshalled the results he had been obtaining for
the last four years and demonstrated each of these by a
comprehensive series of experiments. But as these are
outlined above, it is enough to quote the peroration :
I have shown you this evening autographic records of the
history of stress and strain in the living and non-living. How
similar are the writings ! So similar indeed that you cannot
tell one apart from the other. We have watched the responsive
pulse wax and wane in the one as in the other. We have
seen response sinking under fatigue, becoming exalted under
stimulants, and being killed by poisons, in the non-living as in
the living.
Amongst such phenomena, how can we draw a line of
demarcation, and say, here the physical ends, and there the
physiological begins ? Such absolute barriers do not exist.
Do not these records tell us of some property of matter
common and persistent ? Do they not show us that the
responsive processes, seen in life, have been fore-shadowed in
non-life ? that the physiological is related to the physico-
chemical ? that there is no abrupt break, but a uniform and
continuous march of law ?
If it be so, we shall but turn with renewed courage to the f
investigation of mysteries, which have too long eluded us. For
every step of science has been made by the inclusion of what
seemed contradictory or capricious in a new and harmonious
simplicity. Her advances have been always towards a clearer
perception of underlying unity in apparent diversity.
It was when I came upon the mute witness of these self-
98 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
made records, and perceived in them one phase of a pervading
unity that bears within it all things the mote that quivers in
ripples of light, the teeming life upon our earth, and the radiant
suns that shine above us it was then that I understood for the
first time a little of that message proclaimed by my ancestors
on the banks of the Ganges thirty centuries ago
' They who see but one, in all the changing manifoldness of
this universe, unto them belongs Eternal Truth unto none
else, unto none else ! '
The Royal Institution lecture was highly appreciated ;
and its totally unexpected revelations naturally created
wide interest throughout scientific circles, and even in the
press generally. So far Bose's earlier success, both scientific
and popular, which had been earned by his previous work
and on his visit four years before, had been fully repeated,
and even surpassed. But now his troubles began.
Here may be recalled an old and proverbial summary
of the progress of ideas scientific and other that people
first say : ' It is not true ' ; and next : ' It is not new ' ;
and then often later : ' We knew it all before/ The last is
indeed the commonest of these sayings in India ; but in
Europe we generally begin with the other two.
After his preliminary communication Bose read his
paper at the Royal Society on June 6, 1901, with full
and detailed experimental demonstration. The paper
seemed as well received as usual, but the blow was now
to come ; and this from no less than Sir John Burdon
Sanderson, who was then, and for many years had been,
' the grand old man ' of physiological science in England.
His work, moreover, had largely lain not only in the
study of the behaviour of muscle and nerve under stimu-
lation, but very specially upon the movements of the Venus'
fly-trap (Dionsea), to which Darwin had first called his
attention, and to the electrical physiology of which he had
devoted unsparing labours during many years. He thus
stood out as a peculiar authority on the electro-physiology
both of animals and plants so far as was then known ; and
RESPONSE IN THE LIVING AND NON-LIVING 99
his interest was still so keen that he had come up from
Oxford for this paper. He was naturally the person
to whom a]l looked to open the usual discussion after
the paper. He began with a compliment on Bose's
previous physical work ; but then said it was a great pity
that he should leave his own sphere of study, in which he
had attained such acknowledged distinction, for other fields
which properly belonged to the physiologists. Professor
Bose's paper was still under consideration for publication;
but he might give him the advice that the title should be
changed from ' The Electric Response ' to ' Certain Physical
Reactions/ so leaving to physiologists the use of their term
' Response/ with which physicists are not concerned ; and
further, as to the electric response of ordinary plants
described at the end of the paper, he would say that it
was absolutely impossible, since he had tried to detect it
for many years past, and never could obtain any. It
simply could not be !
Another well-known professor of physiology, also an in-
vestigator of the reactions of muscle and nerve, followed
Sanderson, and substantially supported him. Two physicists
each asked one or two questions, and expressed themselves
satisfied with all the experiments just demonstrated. Bose
was then called on to reply. He understood that the
facts experimentally demonstrated were not questioned
by either of his critics. Instead of these being in any
way impugned on their experimental evidence, he was
asked on mere authority to make modifications, which
altered the purpose and meaning of the paper, and to with-
draw experimental facts among those which he had just
been demonstrating. It seemed to him inexplicable that
the doctrine could be advocated and in the Royal Society
of all places that knowledge should advance so far
and no further ; so he could on no account alter a word
of the paper, even at the risk of a refusal of publication,
unless he were shown, on scientific grounds, wherein the
experiments he had just shown were faulty or defective.
TOO LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
He expected experimental criticism, and was prepared for
it, but not one word of that had been brought forward
by either of his physiological critics.
After this no one spoke, and the meeting separated,
with formal thanks to the author of the paper ; but further
trouble was in store. Sanderson from this time felt deeply
offended ; for his was an intricate and Gladstonian mind,
one of authority and influence, accustomed to be unques-
tioned. He was given, alike in science and in life, to
balancing different view-points and interests, and evolving
compromises accordingly ; and that a young and direct
mind would challenge such a courteously-worded com-
promise, and in such outspoken fashion, must have
utterly surprised and wounded him. Moreover, this direct
contradiction of his negative results from plants, by Bose's
positive ones, could not but be felt very keenly. Yet
Bose on his part could not be expected to accept the situa-
tion. His physical papers had been judged on their
scientific merits, and his papers had hitherto found ready
acceptance, his reputation for accurate work being well
known. But here was an opposition based on no scientific
grounds. He felt that as a physicist he was regarded as an
intruder in the domain of physiology. As an unsophisti-
cated man from the East, he had seriously taken the lessons
preached by the West about the evils of the caste
system ; but here he felt he had come against a yet
worse system of caste whose etiquette he had unwittingly
offended. Lord Rayleigh told him later that he him-
self had been subjected to ceaseless attacks from the
chemists, because he, a physicist, had ventured to pre-
dict that the air would be found to contain a new element
hitherto unsuspected ; yet, in spite of the protests of the
chemists, his prediction, as is well known, was verified by
the discovery of Argon.
The paper, of which, according to custom, the proof had
been circulated among the members before the meeting,
was thus not published in the Royal Society's ' Proceedings,'
RESPONSE IN THE LIVING AND
but placed in the Society's ' Archives ' a fate which has
befallen other notable papers before : e.g. that anticipation
of the kinetic theory of gases which was unearthed and
published by Lord Rayleigh a few years ago decades after
its writer's death. Here it may be explained that the
practice of the Royal Society with regard to the papers it
publishes in its ' Proceedings ' and ' Transactions ' differs
notably from that of the French Academy of Sciences, with
its ' Comptes Rendus.' In the latter every paper read is
printed, and issued forthwith on its writer's responsibility
alone, without thereby suggesting the formal acceptance of
the Academy, or even the approval of any of its members,
beyond the one who has thought enough of it to present it
to the meeting. The Royal Society, on the other hand, has
its Publication Committees, so that the issue of any paper
indicates that it has passed the scrutiny of one of these,
and with at least a preponderance of acceptance. There
is something to be said for each method : that of the French
is democratic, since strictly in the worker's interest, of
getting his idea known, without any delay ; that of the
English is in the corporate interest, and so far necessarily
hierarchic. Bad papers can thus more easily appear in the
' Comptes Rendus ' than in the ' Proceedings.' For the latter,
novel ones may sometimes be rejected or, as in this in-
stance, shelved. This editorial process in any case is apt to
be slow ; for while papers read in Paris appear regularly,
at least in abstract, the week following, those at London
may take months, sometimes even a year or two, especially
when publication in the more dignified quarto form of
the ' Philosophical Transactions ' is concerned. Papers by
workers whose habitual soundness and accuracy have
become known to the* relevant committee, of course
get printed with little or no delay, and this had been
the case with all Bose's physical papers. For the
present one there was also no delay ; he had indeed
settled its fate himself, and the paper was relegated to
the Archives.
lApSltfFE AM). WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
Here now was the sharpest of interruptions to a career
hitherto so successful ; and the contrast was a deeply
painful one indeed as yet the severest shock of Bose's life.
The blow was not simply for himself, as for any ordinary
man of science in Britain ; but, as he clearly saw it, full of
threatening omen for his future scientific career in India,
imperilling his as yet limited facilities for new work, and
his newly risen hopes of scientific support towards their
increase. The news in fact at once went out to India, and
in crude and exaggerated form ' Bose's work and paper
are rejected by the Royal Society ' and thus of course
with suspicion thrown upon his previous work as well.
In a fortnight, too, his time in England would be
up : his passage was already taken. But he saw that he
must fight the matter out and justify himself ; so, without
delay, he explained the situation and applied to the India
Office for an extension of his period of deputation. He
was told that this was without precedent, and could not be
granted. A year's ordinary leave was due to him, as he had
done the necessary service ; but it was next pointed out
that this could only be arranged for in India, through his
own College, as a matter with which the India Office does
not interfere. However, it would take advice. Unluckily
for Bose, the physiologist to whose advice they referred the
matter was one belonging to the hostile group ; and the
request was naturally declined. But nothing daunted,
and determined to burn his boats if necessary, he wrote
again, repeating the urgent and overpowering necessity
he felt of justifying his result, and saying that he had
resolved to remain in England to fight the matter out, and
was prepared to take the consequences. The Secretary of
State now personally looked into the matter, and as Bose
through life had already, and has since so often, found
his decision was made in the best English way. He was
so favourably impressed by this uncompromising courage
that he took the responsibility of granting an extension
of deputation, and intimated the fact to Bose's College.
RESPONSE IN THE LIVING AND NON-LIVING 103
Heartened by this, he went to work anew at the Royal
Institution Laboratory. He at first feared a cold reception,
but was consoled by a brother physicist : ' You can't
poach on other people's preserves without some resentment ;
and you've done worse you've upset their apple-cart.'
He settled down to work for the vacation at his London
home, and then returned to the Royal Institution when
it reopened in October. Work abated depression, but did
not remove it. About this time he was cheered by a letter
from Professor Vines, the well-known botanist and vegetable
physiologist of Oxford, who expressed interest, asked to see
his experiments, and came accordingly to the Royal Institu-
tion Laboratory, bringing with him Horace Brown, another
effective investigator of the process of plant-life, and Howes,
who was Huxley's successor at South Kensington.
With the first application of stimulus to the plant, a wide
swing of the galvanometer-mirror's light-beam along the
scale demonstrated its sensitiveness. Never before had
Bose seen three sober Englishmen so joyously excited : ' they
were just as mad as boys.' Said Howes : ' Huxley would
have given years of his life to see that experiment.' Said
another : ' What did you do to let off steam when you dis-
covered this ? You should shout, or you will kill yourself
by repressing it.' Then in business mood : ' The Royal
Society has not published your paper, so you can give it
to the Linnean. We are its President and Secretary this
year, so we invite you to read us a full paper. Show us
your experiments ; and we will invite all the physiologists,
and particularly your opponents.'
We have seen how the account of Bose's discovery of
Electric Response of Metals and of Ordinary Plants was rele-
gated to the Archives of the Royal Society ; his paper before
the Linnean Society, where his opponents were specially in-
vited to attend, remained thus the only opportunity to meet
all hostile criticism. On the eve of this paper he writes to
a friend in India : ' If I ever give up this new line of inquiry
it shall be through no compulsion, but through choice. I
104 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
do not yet see my way clearly, but I shall take it up time
after time, if only to show that one man's strength and
resoluteness of purpose can face any combination. It is
not for me to sit with folded hands in resignation. I do
not believe in miracles : but the miracle shall happen this
time ; for I know that I am fighting for the establishment
of truth.'
On the day after his paper (February 21, 1902) he
writes again : ' Victory ! I stood there alone, ready
for hosts of opponents, but in fifteen minutes the hall
was resounding with applause. After the paper, Prof.
Howes told me that as he saw each experiment,
he tried to get out of it by thinking of a loophole of
explanation : but my next experiment closed that hole.'
All had gone well ; the speakers afterwards were glowing
in their congratulations, in fact almost to ovation. The
President wrote to him :
It seems to me that your experiments make it clear beyond
doubt that all parts of plants not merely those which are known
to be motile are irritable, and manifest their irritability by an
electrical response to stimulation. This is an important step
in advance, and will, I hope, be the starting point for further
researches to elucidate what is the nature of the molecular
condition which constitutes irritability, and the nature of the
molecular change induced by a stimulus. This would doubt-
less lead to some important generalisation as to the properties
of matter ; not only living matter, but non-living matter as
well.
The disaster of the previous year thus seemed com-
pletely retrieved ; and the paper, with full illustrations of
apparatus, went for publication. But now came a new
surprise not less sudden than had been the previous one,
and even more painful. For any active scientific mind,
confident of its new results, may brace itself up to
maintain them, like the theologian of old, against the
world. To be told that one's results are not credible, and
then to prove them, is thus a triumph for scientific
RESPONSE IN THE LIVING AND NON-LIVING 105
discovery ; and Bose accomplished this, within less than a
year an exceptionally speedy success, as too often the
sad history of science goes. But now the new blow fell
alleged evidence that these results were not new that
they were known before ! already discovered by some one
else ! Results substantially similar to those obtained by
Bose had been communicated to a London scientific society
in November 1901 by the physiologist who had seen Bose's
experiments before the Royal Society (June 1901) and had
also taken part in the subsequent discussion. Bose learned
of the new turn of affairs from a letter from Professor
Howes, as the Secretary of the Linnean Society. A new
period of depression followed, far deeper than the preceding
one, but he rallied himself to reply, formally asking for an
inquiry into the matter. This was at once granted. Vines
and Howes, both also Fellows of the Royal Society, had
fortunately seen proofs of Bose's paper there ten months
before that at the Linnean, and five months before the
other claimant's communication. Bose's lecture at the
Royal Institution, a few days earlier than the Royal
Society function, was also in print and in evidence. With
all the facts before them, the committee of inquiry had no
hesitation. Bose's right to absolute priority was completely
established, and the paper was published accordingly.
After Professor Howes, as Secretary of the Linnean
Society, had fully inquired into the claim to priority which
had threatened to prevent the publication of Bose's paper,
he wrote to him unofficially : ' I am fully sympathetic and
the facts you cite but confirm my original conviction.
You have been mercilessly done by. But my advice to
you would be that you should head your paper with a
plain statement of facts, and beyond this you should leave
fools alone.'
Bose, however, now that he was vindicated, being satis-
fied with the result, mindful of the chivalrous traditions
of his boyhood's tales, not to pursue a defeated antagonist,
and desiring the matter to pass, attenuated this state-
106 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
ment to the utmost brevity and politeness. But this only
renewed Howes's wrath, and turned it fully on Bose : ' I
have no patience with you : Eastern courtesy is misplaced
here ! You are trying to save his face. Mark my words !
People will forget this, and he will soon be your enemy
again/
The prediction indeed proved only too true, as Bose
has repeatedly found to his cost ; isolated in distant India
he could not directly meet the vague insinuations that
were industriously spread by his antagonist about the
accuracy of his work, thereby prejudicing him in the
estimation of English physiologists. This sort of tactics
was successful only in so far as it added difficulties to his
work for the next nineteen years, but it failed ultimately,
especially after Bose's two visits to Europe in 1914 and
in the present year, when he had full opportunity of giving
public and private demonstrations of his remarkable results.
The physiologists who had previously been antagonised by
deliberate misrepresentations now fully recognised the
value of his discoveries and his new methods of experi-
mentation. Bose has now no stauncher friends than the
general body of physiologists who had been at first led to
regard him as an intruder.
After the two painful experiences related above, Bose
was no longer satisfied with the traditional method of
writing papers for scientific societies, with their delays and
risks of publication. ' I should have been too lazy to write
books, but this forced me/ Hence a new period of concen-
trated energy began, and some hundreds of experiments
were carried out in the next few months. The mass of these
are included in his volume ' Response in the Living and Non-
Li ving/ 1 which thus not only embodies the result of all
his previous London lectures and papers, but notably ex-
tends them in various directions. Of these advances some
indications are given in a fresh paper to the Royal Society
1 Longmans, Green & Co., London, 1902.
RESPONSE IN THE LIVING AND NON-LIVING 107
in May, I902. 1 This one was printed promptly, and without
any criticism or objection, although the writer made it the
occasion of re-stating the very matters previously objected
to. For though the paper is essentially physical, and in
the physicist's form of technical expression, his curves
of response of metals are more convincing than ever ;
and no summary of what was coming to be his main
thesis could be more unmistakable than what appeared
in the paper now accepted by the Royal Society. ' The
various phenomena connected with the response in inorganic
substances the negative variation the relation between
stimulus and response the increased response after con-
tinuous stimulation the abnormal response converted into
normal after long-continued stimulation the diphasic
variation the increase of response by stimulants, decrease
by depressors and abolition by " poisons " so-called all
these are curiously like the various response-phenomena in
living tissues. A complete account of the mutual relation
between the two classes of phenomena will be found in a
work to be shortly published, " On the Response in the
Living and Non-Li ving."
Here, then, was at any rate a reversal of that decision
which had consigned his results to the Archives of the
Society.
Herbert Spencer too, who was alive to scientific advances,
acknowledged ' Response in the Living and Non-Living ' in
cordial terms and with regrets that it was too late to avail
himself of the new results in his ' Principles of Biology/
Enough, however, for the present of scientific researches
and their controversies. For reader, as for writer, it may
be a welcome change to turn to another side of experience
and character, as developed in widely different environments
from those of laboratory science.
1 ' On Electromotive Wave accompanying Mechanical Disturbance
in Metals/ Proc. Roy. Soc., 1902.
CHAPTER VIII
HOLIDAYS AND PILGRIMAGES
IT is one of the many conventional beliefs of the industrial
age, with its railways, steamers and telegraphs of yesterday,
its aeroplane routes for to-morrow, that abundant and
extended travel, still more world-commerce, are essentially
modern affairs, and that our forefathers, in any and every
land, were practically all quiet stay-at-home people, knowing
little beyond their self-sustaining village or their country
town. But, as we look into the past, this too simple idea
becomes shaken. Even in the early stone age we find
flints unmistakably brought from afar ; and in this or
that museum of Western Europe one may see a well-wrought
neolithic jade, dug up in its own neighbourhood, which
cannot have had a nearer origin than the Kuen Lun
mountains in Central Asia. So the shell ornaments,
frequently found in early inland burials, have been brought
from shores often far distant. Later, again, the amber of
the East Prussian shores is found in the excavations of
Babylon. That ships of Solomon brought gold from its
old workings in South Africa is a familiar suggestion, and
likely enough ; and so on over the world. And though to
our modern age of commerce and war, it has been the ancient
weapon and the buried treasure which have most attracted
attention, the religious past has also been steadily advancing
its claims to what we now call internationalism. Of the
wide and rapid extension of Buddhism throughout India
and far beyond, and with return pilgrimages accordingly, we
108
HOLIDAYS AND PILGRIMAGES 109
have the clearest evidence, from Hiuen Tsaing and earlier,
to this day. Again, even this great religion was but one
of a whole series of spiritual movements broadly con-
temporaneous and surely interesting : witness the Zoro-
astrians in Persia, ' the discovery of the Law ' in Jerusalem,
the Pythagoreans of Greece and beyond, and so on, from
the early founders of Rome to the Druids of the Celtlands
from Gaul to the Hebrides.
To understand Modern India we need better guidance
than any of our modern writers, so often too strident, even
to harshness, when not more or less narrowly specialised.
For this we should need some truly European-spirited
historian like Comte, or like Lord Acton ; and when he
comes since we must first realise ourselves before under-
standing others he will set before us those prehistoric and
semi-historic traditions above touched on. He would next
revive the unity of Roman days, from Clyde to Euphrates,
and its interaction, not always hostile, with the northern
barbarian world as well. He will not only renew for us
Arthur, Alfred, Charlemagne, and more, as heroes of Europe,
but behind all such champions of Christendom, show us
Christendom itself, at its gentlest and best. He will make us
feel anew the significance of the wanderings of St. Paul as a
source of enduring impulse to the missions of Rome, of Ireland,
of lona and Holy Isle ; as of Austin, Benedict, and others,
throughout European lands ; and of later teachers farther still.
He will trace the effect of such universally diffused re-idealis-
ing of life in these medieval lay pilgrimages of all our peoples,
with their faces set henceforward not only towards Rome
or Santa Sophia, but to Jerusalem itself, of which even the
Crusades were but the exasperated intensification. Within
each land too, and even between them all, he will trace
the pilgrims. Chaucer's genial company, riding towards
Canterbury, is but a swan-song of this old spirit. To
realise it more fully we must join all the great pilgrimages,
as to Compostella, to Chartres, to Cologne and farther, for
the West ; and similarly with East Europeans to Holy
no LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
Novgorod and Kieff , to Mount Athos, and again to Jerusalem.
And even in our Western cities, though the modern noises
of machinery and cannon may have deafened us to the
varying and ever-returning cadences of this pilgrims' chorus,
we may feel its old spirit. Even in Ulster itself, that
world-central survival of fanatic bitterness, we may still
stand near St. Patrick's tomb and see the peasant, before
he takes ship for America, scraping from above it a few
grains of its soil into an old envelope to carry in his bosom
till he dies, so that in that far-away alien land he may lie
amid dust thus hallowed for his folk and faith. And if we
have human feeling enough to respect a scene like this,
however strange to our modern ways, why not also, on our
way to India, respect the Haj/ which unifies another great
faith, after all a kindred one, albeit Unitarian and abstaining ?
Without some such sympathy how shall we understand our
own most modern as well as most ancient fellow-citizens,
the Jews, who beat us at our own games of business and
politics, because they bear so deep in their hearts the
memories and aspirations of their Holy City, and are even
now carrying these into its renewal ?
It is with such preparation then and not simply with the
help of Baedeker and Murray, though brightened by all the
picturesquely-coloured reporting of Kipling, of Ste evens, and
the rest, or dulled by the school and college examination-
routine of our administrators, our professional and business
men, or by the conventionalities of politically-minded writers
of whatever school or race that we may best approach
and understand the greater aspects of India. For it is as a
spiritual unity, underlying all the innumerable but more
superficial differences, that India has primarily to be realised.
We thus come to the Boses and their Indian travels.
The physical sciences are based on observation ; the natural
sciences yet more so ; but the social sciences need it most
of all. In and through travel the social interests of men
are peculiarly educated ; so that, though the traditionally
HOLIDAYS AND PILGRIMAGES in
religious motive of pilgrimage has faded in Europe and is
fading in India, there is still no fear but that it will
return upon our modern spiral. Neither Cook's tourists
nor American ones may strike us as models of reverence ;
but none the less it is their element of reverence which has
sent the bulk of them so far therefore on true pilgrimage
to the historic places of their world. Much more is this
reverence persistent in India. So for both East and West ;
as real and living education vitalises or replaces the tradi-
tional official and commercial sorts, the socio-religious
education of travel will grow up into a very real revival
of the pilgrimages of old, however largely we may as yet
prefer to describe it in more secular-looking terms, as of the
wander-years of higher education.
Now though here perhaps more consciously and definitely
stated, yet none the less in essential spirit, we have been
preparing to appreciate that side of Bose's life and larger
education which may at first sight seem apart from his
scientific studies, yet which none the less has nerved him
for his best work, and above all for his Indian ambitions
beyond his personal interests and achievements. Imme-
diately after marriage he began, with his young wife, to
devote the two annual vacations to seeing and knowing
India and to realising what India has stood for ; and their
experiences, especially if illustrated by a selection of the
multitude of photographs which were thus made, might
in themselves assuredly have made one of the best of
individual records of Indian travel. But alas ! a few years
ago a new and well-meaning servant, instructed to dust
the collection of negatives, had thoroughly cleaned off every
plate before his well-meant exertions were discovered ;
while the pressure of scientific work through college term-
times has kept the journal from being written. Yet vivid
recollections survive, and the educative experience has been
gained ; so that this Western-educated modern physicist
also peculiarly and widely knows his country ; knows it as
an Indian of Indians.
H2 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
Beginning broadly in historic order, with old centres
and shrines before later ones, one of the young couple's first
journeys was to the Sanchi Tope built by Asoka's queen
over a relic of Buddha ; and with the life of the time carved
upon its gigantic gateways. It was from Sanchi that
Asoka's son and daughter went on the mission which estab-
lished Buddhism in Ceylon to this day. Our present pilgrim-
pair, having some adventure with dacoits by the way, went
next to Mandhata with its huge old megalithic-based and
iron-clamped gates of the temple, built at the junction of
two sacred rivers which so readily and fitly becomes a
sacred spot in India of the thrice sacred Nerbudda with
the Tapti. They visited the adjacent temple ruins, whose
legends link them with the heroes of the ' Mahabharata '
Bhima, Arjuna, and others. Another inspiring visit was to
the noble old hill-city of Chitor, once and again the heroic
centre of Rajput chivalry and woman's sacrifice tales of
defeat surpassing those of its famous Towers of Victory.
A j mere too, with its pilgrimage-centre of Pushkar on the
lake, was duly visited. Next came the striking contrast of
modern Jaipur, laid out with formal magnificence by its
astronomer-prince, and of Amber, his ancestral hill-city
one to the Western eye recalling, perhaps surpassing, that
of Edinburgh, new and old. Agra and Delhi were, of
course, also included. Another year, for health reasons,
Naini Tal was taken as centre, with a visit to Lucknow by
the way. From Naini Tal Bose went alone to the Pindari
Glacier. A hairbreadth escape for guide and self proved
only stimulating ; so the next year, starting by way of
Almora, he piloted his wife and several friends to the glacier
again. Another year, starting from Rawal Pindi, then the
railway terminus, they made their way up to Baramulla,
hired a house-boat for Srinagar, and saw much of the
landscape beauty, the gardens and monuments of Kashmir.
In two later years Kashmir was revisited, the last time as
guests of the Maharaja, and so with fuller acquaintance,
and a standing invitation to return.
HOLIDAYS AND PILGRIMAGES 113
Another journey was through Orissa, with its famous
temple of Bhubaneswar, its caves of Udaigiri and the great
rock-inscription of Asoka, Puri with its Jagannath temple,
the neighbouring ruins of Kanarak, the Chilka lake, and
so on. The famous caves of A j ant a and Ellora were visited
together ; and then again on a later journey with Mrs. (now
Lady) Herringham and her group of Indian and other artist-
collaborators on their task of copying the Ajanta paintings
Sister Nivedita (Margaret Noble) being also of the party.
At Bankipur the excavations of Pataliputra, and the famous
Persian and Moghul library, were duly visited ; and also
the birthplace of Govinda Singh, one of that notable
succession of saints and heroes who founded the Sikh
religion. Another year the Sikh interest was followed up
at its main centre Amritsar, with the golden temple. One
journey to Lahore was to lecture in the University ; but
again there were extended visits. Similarly the Bombay
district was wandered through, largely for its cave-temples
of Elephanta, Karli and Kenhari, and next the Mahratta
country, with its associations of the struggles of the warlike
Shiva ji.
Again on their last return journey from Europe and
America, in 1915, these ardent travel-comrades, landing at
Colombo, travelled through Ceylon, visiting the ancient
Buddhist temples, and thence came northwards through
the great temple-cities of the south, from Rameswaram by
Madura and Tan j ore, to Trichinopoly and Srirangam
places of which the writer has lately written an interpretative
eulogy, even venturing to correct the estimate of Ferguson. 1
At the last named Bose was not only shown all that ordinary
Indian visitors may see, but invited to enter the inmost
precincts the Holy of Holies. He explained that he was
not an orthodox Hindu, and no longer believed in caste, and
had lost it in any case by his journeys to foreign countries
across the sea ; and so he had no light to enter the
1 ' The Temple Cities,' Modern Review, March 1919.
ii4 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
sanctuary. ' No, no/ said the priest. ' Come in. You
are a Sadhu.' 1
Several visits too were made to the Kumaon district,
one with a stay with the monks at Mayavati ; and each
time with visits to the villages an element indeed running
through all these journeys, and an interest no less real than
that in the monuments and associations of the past. And
in India, though definite historic record be too often lacking,
in the present village and the past legends, the traditional
spirit none the less survives ; and the simplest -seeming
villagers are thus often deeply imbued with Hindu culture
and mythology. With all these journeys such interests
could not but strengthen.
At Budh-Gaya under whose pipal tree, still represented
by its descendant, Buddha attained his illumination a
vacation was largely spent as guests of the Mahanta (the
Abbot), whose conversations increased their insight into
the spirit of Buddhism. Then too they saw the old city
of Rajgir, where Buddha pleaded for the lives of the goats
from its king, and which was the scene of the first assembly
of his faith after his death.
Such interest in the ancient centres of Indian learn-
ing had an old and natural nucleus in youthful memories
of Vikrampur and its traditions. Hence our pilgrims
went at one time to Taxila, with its excavations now guided
by Hiuen Tsaing's travel- journal of thirteen centuries
ago ; and at another time to the ruins of Nalanda, to
which Hindus look back as a great University, which had
in the days of Athens thousands of students, including
some from other lands beyond India. But of all journeys
the best remembered seems that which was most of
the traditional pilgrimage character to Badrinath and
Kedarnath, the goal of the last journey of Judhisthira,
one of the heroes who there sought his end. For this long
journey the start begins with what is the terminus for
1 A Sadhu is a man who has devoted himself to the contemplative
and religious life, whether as hermit or wanderer.
HOLIDAYS AND PILGRIMAGES 115
most pilgrims Hardwar, where the Ganges emerges from
the mountains and enters on the plain. Three weeks'
journey uphill from the railway was needed, with mules
carrying all necessities of life, Bose riding or walking,
Mrs. Bose sometimes walking, sometimes carried on light
stretchers. On this journey, more fully than ever
before, they felt themselves as in and of the pilgrim
throng from all parts from Ceylon and Comorin, Bengal
and Orissa, in fact every part of India. Never had
they seen such intensive influence of religion at once
traditional and natural ; for all the pilgrims were attuned
and in accord, and greeting each other as friends without
thought of caste. Every face was glowing with fervour
as the great snows appeared ; and the cry of ' Jai
Kedarnath ! ' (Glory to the God of Snows !) passed from lip
to lip. Men and women alike were transfigured in trances
of prayer and its reward of ecstasy. A blind man groping
his way up a narrow and dangerous path, a mere cliff edge,
when told, ' Friend, take care ! ' answers, ' Why need I be
afraid when He is leading me by the hand ? '
No wonder then that Bose, after recalling these memories,
should say, ' With all these experiences, India has made
me and kept me as her son. I feel her life and unity deep
below all.'
This essential unity of India, which lives most deeply
in the spirit of religion and in the soul of woman, is also
clear in old-world statesmanship ; a vivid illustration of this
was given as recently as the late eighteenth century by Queen
Ahilyabai, the gentlest, but not the least effective, ruler
of the notable and warlike dynasty of the Holkars. From
her beautiful little capital of Maheswar on the Nerbudda
itself a place of pilgrimage, some forty miles or so south
of the present State capital of Indore, and hence a
representative spot for Central India she sent the funds
and chose the builders to erect four new temples at the
extreme points of India north, south, east and west ; and
thus encouraged further pilgrimage.
u6 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
The notion is often expressed by English journalists,
and even by officials who ought to know better, that
Indian unity is a recent ideal of lawyers and politicians
taken from Mazzini and absorbed by unrestful youth ;
and it is true enough that there are minds which thus
too simply view it, through that education in European
nationalism and liberalism which an orator can so logically
adapt and so eloquently re-voice. But India's real unity
is something incomparably older and deeper : it rests on
sacred and epic literature and legend for the people, and
on great and ancient philosophies, which are not merely
cultivated by the classically educated, but deeply diffused,
for good and evil, throughout the people as well. All this
variety of cultural influences, in essential harmony and (to
us strangely) free from intolerance, has from unnumbered
ages been steeping into the Indian villages with their old
economic self-sufficiency and moral solidarity : hence the
apparent heterogeneity, of languages and castes, and of
mingled and changing Hindu, Mohammedan and European
rule, has mattered far less than we are wont to suppose.
India then, though not a nation in a European sense,
is something not merely less, but more. It is rather the
analogue of Europe : and though even vaster in population,
and more varied in climates and peoples, has a more diffused
and an often deeper community of spirit. Not simply
then through any mere political changes can this unity
be more adequately realised though on the modern spiral
some may think so but also, and more deeply and surely,
through her cultural spirit. That spirit not even the con-
quests of Islam have broken, nor yet the modern rule and
other influences of the West. This it is which is stirring
towards its renaissance, as the religious groups of the past
generation, or the political groups of the present, alike
show : and this it is which will more fully revive its old
values, and adjust them anew with those of the Western
world. This indeed is what many of its pioneers, like
Bose among others, have throughout their lives, and each
HOLIDAYS AND PILGRIMAGES 1.17
in his own way, been doing, and yet more fully preparing
for.
Instead then of always looking at India as a country
with everything to learn from the West, and nothing to
teach it, as the superior Western fashion has too long been,
we are finding that we also have something to learn
though as yet we may think only from Indians in the first
rank, like Bose, Tagore, and perhaps a few others. But
we have to learn something from the Indian culture itself ;
and perhaps especially now in the present situation of
Europe, torn into embittered halves, and these again
subdividing without end along every old division of
languages and nationalities, intensified by the recent
Germanic, Anglo-Saxon, and other mythologies of race.
And with even all those divisions more or less splintering
across and estranged anew by the spreading rift of labour
towards revolution.
Suppose now we students, men of science, of letters,
or of art, though hitherto so non-political, begin to consider
how we may help forward something of that true peace and
good will to which our best statesmanship indeed aspires, but
can never by mere treaties realise, nor by political leagues
obtain. Must we not again look to all that is best in each
country's history and civilisation ? which should be found
in its rural villages, its cities' past ? How else, for instance,
has that old and bitter feud and mutual hate, so long second
to none in duration and intensity in Europe that between
Scots and English come to an end ? By growth of mutual
knowledge and understanding, even more than by common
advantage. How else abate the old bitterness, and the
renewed alienation of Ireland ? how inspire a saner feeling
in England where for so long it has been so far from
that desirable ? Without some respect and good will
for France as for Belgium, would the English people have
risen to support them as they have done, even despite
their admitted and manifest material interest ? And
without that increasing sympathy with European culture
n8 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
which American travellers have been taking home these
two generations, would their present virtual reincorpora-
tion with Western and Mediterranean Europe have been
possible ?
The reunion of Europe, then, can most strongly, even
if slowly, be made through the education of travel.
Not merely in the recent tourist spirit, at least in the
cruder forms ; but in that combining of the best of
modern cultural travel with something of the old spirit
of pilgrimage which that helps effectively to renew. The
Brownings and Ruskin in Italy were examples of this
union in their day : why not renew it more widely ? As
Europeans grow more tolerant and more sympathetic,
like the Indian travellers we have been following, our
scheme of educational travel will grow and spread into
fuller pilgrimages, which should be on the Indian scale
throughout Baltic and Mediterranean lands alike, from
Scandinavia to Spain, and thence to Greece and beyond.
Why not east and west, from Russia to Ireland, indeed
to America as well ? with ever increasing appreciation
of all their regional and civic interests, the natural,
the- spiritual and the temporal together, and in aspects
historic, actual and incipient. Does this seem ' Utopian ' ?
It is after all but what the tourist and the wandering nature-
lover, the art-student, and the historian have long been
doing, and what the regional agriculturist and town
planner are now in their turn doing. To-day it lies with
re-education, with reconstruction, and with re-religion
as well, to organise all these contacts more fully. In
view of the real and profound unity and all but universal
tolerance, in spite of many imperfections and drawbacks,
the recovery of some such measures of spiritual unity
as her children feel cannot be unattainable in the West,
the more since this once was a living force in the old days
of Christendom a force which, so far from having lost its
old appeals, is indeed for ever reviving.
Not only is the cultural and spiritual value of a large
LADY BOSE.
PROFESSOR J. C. BOSE (1907).
HOLIDAYS AND PILGRIMAGES 119
experience of travel manifest in Bose's general outlook,
at once ranging over India and the West ; but it was
also of more than frequent scientific suggestiveness. One
cannot, of course, explain mental incidents like the
unexpected flash of this or that new physical or biological
insight, or fresh plan of investigation, amid some scene
of natural beauty or venerable antiquity, beyond the
emotional and mental stirring such scenes so readily give.
But Bose's ardent temperament could not but feel Asoka's
inscription of old as a vivid call and command to his own
life : ' Go forth and intermingle ; and bring them to the
righteousness which passe th knowledge. Go forth among
the terrible and powerful, both here and in foreign coun-
tries in kindred ties even of brotherhood and sisterhood
... everywhere/
Nor is it to be wondered at that among the excava-
tions of Taxila, and again among the ruins of Nalanda,
he should feel that it was not only their old University
spirit thrilling within him, but the common spirit of
all Universities. These visitings peculiarly awoke and
strengthened in him the perception that his life-work was to
be more than one of personal purpose and scientific character
more even than the organisation of a physical laboratory,
even of the best ; and that what he must henceforth aim at,
and think out, and work for should be nothing less than
recreation of some yet fuller centre of intellectual quest
and diffusion, like those of old. First of all for India :
yet also, like those, with contacts and impulses to all the
world beyond. In this old pride of India as she was, and
hopes of her as she may be, on one hand, no less than in
his peculiarly full and wide participation in Western science
on the other, we see at once the two uniting forces which
found expression in the foundation of the Bose Research
Institute.
And with this better understanding of the man, upon
his Indian side, and his ever-widening cultural sympathies
and outlooks, we may return to his scientific work.
CHAPTER IX
PLANT RESPONSE
AT the outset of this intricate subject a brief and per-
sonal outline may be given. In his investigations on
response in general Bose had found that even ordinary
plants and their different organs were sensitive exhibiting,
under mechanical or other stimuli, an electric response,
indicative of excitation. If this were so, it puzzled him
greatly that so-called ordinary plants should not give
any indication of excitation by visible movement. In the
best known of sensitive plants, Mimosa, the leaves, on being
irritated, strikingly respond by a sudden fall of the leaf,
due to contraction of the lower half of the cushion-shaped
and joint-like leaf -base, the ' pulvinus/ Bose noted that
the contraction of the pulvinus was small ; it was the long
leaf-stalk which here acted as a magnifying index. He
therefore thought that the .contraction due to excitation
may be present in ordinary plants, and may only have
escaped the attention of other workers. To test this antici-
pation, he attached a similar magnifying device to ordinary
plants, and was rewarded by finding that they too
answered to stimulus by a distinct contraction. He there-
fore entered into a long series of investigations in which
the mechanical response of the plant indicated its state of
excitation.
For recording the responsive movement Bose employed
his device of the ' Optical Lever/ by which the movement
was greatly magnified. He was thus able to demonstrate
1 20
PLANT RESPONSE 121
that ' all the characteristics of the responses exhibited by
the animal tissues, were also found in those oj the plant.'
The results of these extended investigations, embodied
in a series of seven papers, were communicated to
the Royal Society in December 1903. They were
regarded as of such importance that the Royal Society
accepted them for publication in their 'Philosophical
Transactions/ But the same hostile influence which had
attempted the suppression of his Linnean Society paper
was again in full activity. Bose was now away from
England, and his opponents had their way. The Royal
Society then informed Bose that their appreciation of the
value of his work was shown by their willingness to accept
his papers for the ' Transactions.' His results were, however,
so unexpected and so opposed to current theories that
nothing short of the plant's automatic record would carry
conviction ; his papers would therefore be placed, for the
present, in the Archives of the Society.
This postponement, and virtual refusal, of publication
for the condition laid down seemed at that time an
impossible one was of course widely taken, and in India
especially, as a strong, if vague, confirmation of the dubious-
ness of Bose's alleged discoveries. But happily Bose's
response to this combination of environmental stimuli,
by turns so depressing and so exasperating, was of the
intensity and duration required for the large and sustained
experimental productivity summarised in the two books
which Bose wrote for publication. 1 They include an
amount of work and fresh result during the three years
of their production to which there can be few parallels
in science ; so that; despite the painfulness of these ex-
periences, we can now hardly regret them. We must, in
fact, rather congratulate their sufferer upon stimuli which
have proved to be of such effective increase to his own
movements and growth.
1 Plant Response, 1906, and Comparative Electro-Physiology, 1907.
Longmans, Green & Co.
122 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
In taking up his researches on the response of plants
Bose asked himself :
How are we to know what unseen changes take place within
the plant ? If it be excited or depressed under some special
circumstances how are we to be made aware of it ? The only
conceivable way would be, if that were possible, to detect and
measure the actual response of the organism to a definite testing
blow. In an excitable condition, the feeblest stimulus should
evoke a large response. In a depressed state, even a strong
stimulus should evoke only feeble response ; and lastly when
death overcomes life, there would be an abrupt end of the power
to answer at all. In short, under successive uniform stimuli,
the change in the magnitude of the response should reveal to
us the physiological changes induced by the environment.
We might therefore have detected the internal condition
of the plant if we could have made it write down its response.
In order to succeed in this, we have to discover some compulsive
force which will make the plant give an answering signal ;
secondly we have to supply the means for an automatic con-
version of these signals into an intelligent script. And last of
all we have ourselves to learn the nature of these hieroglyphics.
Hence, then, is the essential transition in Bose's work
from physics to physiology. Now for a fuller outline of
the series which opened with the Response of Inorganic
Matter. They comprise a succession of six volumes,
representing many years of work, and each not only sum-
marising separate investigations and papers communicated
to the Royal or other Societies, but with large accession
of new material. The first of the series, * Response
in the Living and Non-living ' (Longmans, Green & Co.,
1902), with 199 pages, has been already summarised above ;
the second, ' Plant Response ' (Longmans, 1906), amounts
to 781 pages, detailing 315 experiments ; the third,
'Comparative Electro-Physiology' (Longmans, 1907), goes
to 760 pages, with 321 experiments described, and as usual
largely figured also. The next six or seven years' work was
largely devoted to the perfecting of recording instruments ;
but substantial results of work with them are also embodied
PLANT RESPONSE 123
in the fourth volume of this weighty series, as ' Researches
on Irritability of Plants ' (Longmans, 1913), with 376
pages and 180 experiments. The work of the years follow-
ing appeared in the ' Philosophical Transactions ' of the
Royal Society for 1913. That of 1917 and 1918 has been
mainly published as ' Life Movements in Plants/ this being
Vol. I of the ' Transactions of the Bose Research Institute '
(Calcutta, 1918), with its 251 pages, including 21 papers.
Vol. II of the ' Transactions ' for 1919 is just published,
with its 344 pages and 30 papers. After the publication of
one more volume their fertile author hopes to conclude
his researches on Plant Movements, and thus to turn to
other classes of problems old and new, each long meditated,
but practically delayed.
Given this long series of six volumes, with well
over 2500 pages describing a full thousand and more of
experiments, with summaries of their results, the writer has
found it no easy problem to attempt any reasonably intel-
ligible account of their main results, such as has been
already offered above in Chapter IV, for Bose's initial work
with electrical waves. To do this at all adequately,
for such a multiplicity of problems in the plant world
explored by our author, within the limits of present
space is impossible ; since fuller explanation, rather than
further concentration, would often be desirable. For
adequate summary, even of main results, an entire volume
is needed, and such a volume only Bose himself can write.
Moreover, a biography is like a portrait : it seeks
essentially to depict the man, and it can at best only
indicate the scope, the principle and process of his life-
work ; its volume of accomplishment must in general
be left to the specialists to whom they are addressed,
while even their principal results in the present case are
still only beginning to be adequately summarised for
students of bio-physics and of vegetable and animal
physiology (indeed of experimental psychology too) in
the various text-books and treatises of these subjects
124 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
which are from time to time prepared for them, in various
countries and their languages.
Still the reader may reasonably expect some broad
indications ; and towards such the writer has laboured.
Instead of attempting fully to summarise any of the
volumes either singly or in succession, a fresh method has
presented itself which, despite its diagrammatic (and there-
fore at first sight unfamiliar) aspect, may be found helpful
towards expressing the main stages of the active life-work
here before us. If we can outline such a graphic present-
ment, it should be applicable to kindred interpretations,
of scientific work and individual development together.
At any rate, as our physiologist has so long been striving
to trace the curves of life in plants (and also in animals),
let us try to mark down some essentials of his own life-
curves of interests and growing achievements, and of his
aims beyond.
As the pool or lake reflects the starry sky, so we may
think of the mind of science in general as the would-be
complete mirror of the cosmos. But the action of each
individual scientific mind, with its own rhythm of growth
and development, is like a widening wave-circle, which we
watch as it starts from its excited centre and extends
upon the surface of the pool. It reflects fresh images to
us as it advances ; yet it is none the less the same
wave-circle all the time, continuous with its own
past, as it- presses on towards its widening future. Its
photographs then, at different phases of this development
conveniently those of notably vivid reflections to our
eyes preserve for us its characteristic record, its essential
biography.
The succession of books just named are, as it were, so
many records of what has been fundamentally one and
the same thought-advance, in its extension, and also of
course in its deepening. Each book is thus a record up to
its date of this extending curve, or at least of a large arc
of the curve, while this or that intervening paper is a
PLANT RESPONSE 125
minor arc of this again, or on the way to it. In the present
series this process is peculiarly clear, in fact as typical as
may be.
Of course, no mind's survey is all-comprehensive ; hence
a semicircle is ample for our diagram. This again we
may divide into parts, for the elements of an extending
survey, and these are four : the response of metal, of
plant, of animal muscle and nerve, and finally the
corresponding physico-psychological interpretation as far
as may be. A reconsideration of the facts already known
to physiologists of the responsive behaviour to the stimuli
of the physical environment of animal tissues, muscle and
nerve, when taken in conjunction with our physicist's
discoveries as regards the behaviour of inorganic matter
under stimulus, led him to that remarkable discovery
of the curve of response of metals so strictly similar
to the response of animal tissues already noted ; and
this correspondence next naturally led to that inquiry as
to the possibility of corresponding responses from the
plant, hitherto reckoned so passive and inert, which we
have also seen as successful. Here, then, was a new and
substantial unification of phenomena previously supposed
to be strictly confined to animal physiology, and an
extension of them first to the field of vegetable physiology
and then to that of physics, in which no such close
comparison had ever been suspected. Furthermore,
since in all sciences it is man who is observing and
interpreting nature, and thereby learning something
towards the better understanding of himself, the field of
human physiology is also successfully entered; especially
perhaps with the chapter on ' Visual Analogues,' and the
discovery of the binocular alternation of vision, and so on.
Moreover in this way it generally happens, and specifically
with such observations as those on ' unconscious visual
impression/ that the field of psychology is entered,
and found so far harmonious with preceding ones ; while
further inquiry in this field is also indicated, as will be
126 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
seen in a subsequent chapter. Leaving experimental
psychology aside, however, for the present or rather, let
us say, leaving it as implicated within the human and
comparative fields we may conveniently divide the range
of inquiries of this first volume of the series ' Response of
the Living and Non-Living ' into its four main factors :
of Non-Living, Vegetable, Animal, and Human ; and thus
we see all comprehended in the generalising sweep of a
semicircle.
The Response of the Non-Living has not been inquired
into further ; for henceforth our investigator has been
devoted to the Organic field. The next volume, as its
name implies ' Plant Response ' is essentially confined
to its chosen department of Vegetable Physiology, as
closely as may be ; but in the immediately succeeding,
and indeed complemental, volume ' Comparative Electro-
Physiology ' we find not only an intensive application of
all then known of that department of animal physiology
to the further elucidation of plant-behaviour, but also
vigorous incursions into the animal physiologist's own
fields of labour ; with the ensuing development of many
of his classic experiments to more refined observation
and record, and larger comparative treatment of them,
and often accompanied by fresh inquiries.
Thus from a study of the response of leaves (in course
of which Burdon Sanderson's and other previous work on
Dionaea Venus' Fly-trap is reviewed and interpreted)
we are led on by his consideration of the ordinary leaf as
an electrical organ to that of the curious electric organs
long known in certain fishes ; and thence to ' the theory of
electrical organs.'
This line of work is further extended into a whole
chapter of comparisons of the ' response of animal and
vegetable skins ' in which grape and tomato on one
side, and frog, tortoise and lizard on the other, are
all shown to behave substantially alike. So again Bose
compares the behaviour of the epidermic and the secreting
PLANT RESPONSE 127
tissues of plants to those of animals ; and similarly with
regard to the response of digestive organs, from the
tentacle of the sun-dew, or the pitcher of Nepenthes, which
Darwin's ' Insectivorous Plants ' had brought into great
prominence a good few years before, to the stomachs
of frog, tortoise and other animals : and in all this com-
parative study unexpected agreements are found even of
detail. So from a chapter on ' the response to the stimulus
of light given by leaves/ our writer passes boldly to the
response of the retina to the same stimulus. Again, from
the determination of the velocity of transmission of excita-
tion in plant-tissues and the comparison of the conducting
powers of two parts of an identical nerve by the original
device of a ' Conductivity Balance/ we come to a new
method for the quantitative stimulation of nerve ; and
thence again to the electrical response of isolated * vegetable
nerve ' (isolated, that is, by the withdrawal of the fibro-
vascular bundle, with its conducting elements included
within its sheath, from the leaf-stalk of the fern),
in which the analogous behaviour to animal nerve is
demonstrated, in normal condition, under tetanisation,
under influence of heat and cold, and under anaesthetics,
like ether and chloroform.
In such ways of investigation, at once broader in
scope and bolder in comparison than heretofore, while
more experimentally elaborated generally with improved
methods and newly invented and finer apparatus this
incursion into animal physiology proceeds, often with
fresh results. The further investigations into the electro-
physiology of nerve are too elaborate and technical for
outline here ; but the animal physiologist has had since
to reckon with them increasingly.
It is now time to return to the earlier of these two
correlated volumes, the one on ' Plant Response/ and
to note something of its advance upon its predecessor,
which indeed now appears to be the introduction to
Bose's wide and varied inquiry in vegetable physiology
128 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
which has become increasingly predominant. The essen-
tial problem is thus stated : Is the plant a mysterious
entity, with regard to whose working no law can be
definitely predicated ? Or can it be interpreted as a
machine i.e. as transforming the energy supplied
to it in ways more or less capable of explanation ?
So diverse are its movements that the first hypothesis
has often seemed the only one. For light may induce
sometimes positive curvature, sometimes negative ; gravi-
tation induces one movement in the root and the
opposite in the shoot, and so on : whence it appeared to
many, even to evolutionists, as if the organism had become
endowed with various specific sensibilities for its own
advantage, but that a consistent physico-chemical explana-
tion of its movements was out of the question, However,
the thesis is here clearly affirmed, and justified in detail, that
' the plant may nevertheless be regarded as a machine ;
and that its movements of response to external stimuli,
though apparently so various, are ultimately reducible to
a fundamental unity of reaction. This demonstration has
been the object of the present work, and not that treatment
of known aspects of plant-movements which is to be found
detailed, together with the history of the subject, in standard
books of reference on Vegetable Physiology.'
Of this large thesis the first chapter is a model of explicit
statement. ' The plant, like a machine, responds either to
the impact of external forces, or to energy latent within.
As the working efficiency of an engine is exhibited by
indicator-diagrams, so the physiological efficiency of a
living machine may be inferred from the character of its
pulse-records/ The making of the records, and the mode
of exhibiting them during their progress (even to the largest
audiences), are explained and clearly figured ; this ' Optical
Pulse-Recorder ' may therefore here be figured (Fig. 7), as at
once simple and convincing. The apparatus consists of a
twin drum, over which is wrapped a band of paper to serve
as the recording surface. The drums are kept revolving by
PLANT RESPONSE
129
clock-work. The excursion of the spot of light caused by
the responsive movement of the plant-organ, is followed
FIG. 7. The Optical Pulse-Recorder. B, arm of optical lever attached
to moving leaflet ; L, ray of light, which after two reflections
from the two mirrors falls on the recorder ; C, clock-work, which
keeps twin-drum on which is wrapped the recording paper
revolving ; H, horizontal guide bar ; K, inkwell with projecting
sponge.
by means of a sliding inkwell, from which projects the
ink-sponge. By this means, the tracing of the response-
curve and its various modifications under the action of
different influences can be demonstrated. In the figure
here reproduced the short arm of the optical lever is
attached to the pulsating leaflet of the Telegraph-plant.
130 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
Again it is shown that agencies which depress the
physiological condition of a tissue also depress its
pulse of response (and conversely) ; and this response
ceases with death, just as does that shown in the
indicator-diagram with the stoppage of the machine.
Starting again with the muscle-curve so long familiar to
animal physiologists, analogous curves are now for the first
time obtained for the contractions of ordinary plants : not
only those of the sensitive stamens of various composites,
and the leaves of the sensitive plants, but also of ordinary
leaves. The filaments which make up the corona or
' glory ' of the passion-flower were found to give an
excitatory contraction of great magnitude, . up to as much
as 20 per cent, of their length. This is only an extreme
case : the pistil and style and stamen of the flower exhibit
contraction. The phenomenon, of course, varies with
the nature of the tissue, since the thin cellulose walls of
young cells may acquire many later thickenings and harden-
ings, which are often of great mechanical strength and
resistance. Turgidity too is an important and interestingly
variable internal factor ; and age, season, temperature,
and other factors have all to be reckoned with.
The modification of response exhibited by given plants
and their organs under various conditions is next copiously
experimented on. Response is not merely uniform : it may
show progressive increase the ' staircase effect ' of animal
muscle. Nor is fatigue merely a muscular phenomenon.
Plant-records also amply exhibit it ; for these readily
become ' tired out ' by long-continued previous stimula-
tion. The accompanying tracings (Figs. 8 and 9), taken
by his automatic recorders, show how the successive re-
sponses, under different conditions of experiment, undergo
a ' staircase ' enhancement or a ' fatigue ' depression.
Indeed some of the more intricate phenomena of fatigue,
nowadays being so actively studied, alike for educational,
athletic and industrial purposes, are seen not to be without
PLANT RESPONSE
their parallels in the plant ; not merely in the sensitive
Mimosa, but even in the undemonstrative radish.
The discussion of the various theories of response must
be left to the professed physiologist : it is sufficient here to
emphasise the more general conception underlying the whole
work and increasingly verified as it proceeds. Not simply
is the mechanical response to stimulus expressed in obvious
FIG. 8. The ' staircase ' enhancement of response in plant.
movements like the fall of the Mimosa leaf, but by mechanical
response of organs of ordinary plants when their record is
magnified, as by the optical lever. Such excitatory reaction
caused by external stimulus expresses itself not only in
mechanical movements, but also by generation of electric
current, and by change of electric conductivity; and
doubtless also in other ways, both physical and chemical.
Just as the passage of one and the same electric current may
be manifested not only by the swing of the galvanometer
needle, but also in chemical change or in terms of light
and heat, or by sound, as from an electric bell, according
132 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
to the nature of the detecting apparatus upon its circuit
so essentially it is with the organism, which may exhibit
a variety of different responses to the same stimulus,
in accordance with its differing functional and structural
means of expression. Its mechanical response, its respon-
sive electric current, its variation of conductivity are but
different expressions of an identical reaction which underlies
excitation.
This conception of the concomitance of these different
FIG. 9. ' Fatigue ' depression of response in plant.
manifestations, when taken along with the further investi-
gation of their optimum, and also of their maximum
and minimum especially those of temperature, at which
inaction appears, and even death supervenes next
led to the unexpected discovery of a ' death-spasm '
in all plants. Furthermore, this death-spasm, when
experimentally scrutinised and recorded by each of these
independent methods mechanical, electro-motive, and
conductivity variation was found to show the same
simultaneity of all the three changes.
For determining the critical temperature at which the
PLANT RESPONSE 133
death-spasm occurs, a perfected form of apparatus a
' Death Recorder ' was devised. The death-point at
any rate for all the dicotyledonous plants observed and
their different organs was found to be almost as definite
as a physical constant ; for, using very diverse specimens
and methods, the critical temperature is always at or very
near 60 C. The death-contraction in the plant is in every
respect similar to the same phenomenon in the animal, and
is an instance of true excitatory effect. Yet different plants
have their characteristic death-curves, and the same species
may exhibit variations under changed conditions of age
and previous history. Thus when the plant's power of
resistance is artificially depressed, whether by poisons or
by fatigue, its death-spasm occurs at a temperature
often considerably lower even as much as 23. This
phenomenon, of course, also shows that the death-spasm is
no mere phenomenon of coagulation ; for even if it takes
place at 60 or thereabouts, it cannot also happen at 37 C.
As stated before, there is an electrical spasm corre-
sponding to the mechanical spasm at death. The electro-
motive force generated at death-temperature is sometimes
considerable : Bose shows that in each half of a green
pea it may be as high as half a volt. If five hundred
peas are suitably arranged in series, the electric pressure
will be five hundred volts, which may cause even electrocu-
tion of unsuspecting victims. And so Bose drily remarks :
' It is well that the cook does not know the danger she runs
in preparing the particular dish ; it is fortunate for her that
the peas are not arranged in series ! '
All this complex investigation necessarily depended
on contriving and adjusting three different systems of
apparatus for recording different modes of response,
mechanical and electrical. Though the instruments em-
ployed were so widely different, yet the responses obtained
were found to agree in every important detail.
Much investigation has been devoted in these books, and
also, more recently, to the nature and causes of ' automatic '
134 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
movements, of which those of the Telegraph-plant
(Desmodium) are the extreme examples in the vegetable
world. Briefly stated, the automatism turns out to be but
apparent, in so far as these activities are proved to be
dependent on external stimulus previously absorbed. The
half-way house between this ' automatic ' activity and
the simple response of a Mimosa leaf was discovered in
Biophytum, a common weed of Bengal (akin to Oxalis) and
also in the somewhat allied Averrhoa Carambola, an acid
fruit-tree of Indian gardens. For while in these a single
moderate stimulus gives rise to a single response, as in
Mimosa, a strong stimulus produces a whole succession of
responses, recalling the automatism of Desmodium. This
observation suggested the idea that Desmodium might be
depressed in its automatism, and even reduced to the single
response of Mimosa ; and this condition was experimentally
realised : the leaflets ceased to pulsate accordingly, and
came to a standstill. Conversely, why should not Mimosa
have its simple response exalted towards a multiple
response, which is the transition stage on the way to autom-
atism ? This was not at first demonstrable mechanically,
but was proved by the electrical mode of response-record :
while now more lately, with the finer recorders since
invented, it has been successfully recorded in Mimosa.
That is, its natural single response is developed into a slow
rhythm of multiple response ; and this is practically
equivalent to the automatism induced in Biophytum. The
ascent of the whole series of sensitive plants from ordinary
(but as we now know, only apparently) insensitive ones,
first to simple response as in Mimosa, and thence through
transitional forms like Biophytum to the habitually auto-
matic Desmodium, has thus been made intelligible surely
no small gain to our conception of the evolutionary process.
Another remarkable comparison is here also made
that between the automatic pulsation of the telegraph-
plant and that of animal heart-muscle. The comparison is
PLANT RESPONSE 135
worked out in considerable detail, and the result is wholly
confirmatory, in variously modified as well as in normal
conditions, such as temperature, drugs or poisons. So
exact is the correspondence that a poison which stops
the heart in its phase of contraction also stops Desmodium
in its contracted phase, while the poison which stops the
heart in relaxation does the same for the plant. And
while for the heart it has been known that one poison
may be used as the antidote to the other, so it turns out
with the poisoning of Desmodium.
Yet another point of interest appears. The actively
rhythmic muscle of the heart is more resistant to ex-
ternal stimulus than is ordinary muscle : e.g. it resists
tetanisation by external electric shock. Similarly for the
active Desmodium leaflet. Thus that passive yielding
of the organism or organ to external stimuli, of which
we have so often seen cases above, has here its limit :
and we see the internal energy of the organism now, as it
were, vindicating itself against interferences from the out-
side environment. We may thus still speak of ' automatic
movements/ and concede a certain independence to the
organism, and individuality to the organ.
The general thesis that plant and animal physiology
despite all differences of aspect and habit of life, and of
organisms in detail are yet profoundly analogous is again
strikingly confirmed.
Turning next to the section on Growth, our knowledge
is greatly advanced, as will be found in greater detail
in a subsequent chapter. It is, however, enough here
to note that for the vegetable physiologist the most
interesting of all these new conceptions may lie in
the reinterpretation of the growth-process, as itself
a phenomenon of automatism, comparable to that
of Desmodium pulsation. For here we have the
rhythmic activity controlled by inner stimuli, which
present a certain autonomy of their own, and yet are also
dependent for their continuance upon energies ultimately
136 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
derived from the environment and sensitive to its changes.
In both cases depletion of energy by isolation stops activity.
Yet from this state of standstill, growth can be renewed
by fresh stimulus from outside. Even an organ in which
growth has normally ended may be started anew, as demon-
strated by Bose, by electrical or other appropriate stimuli.
So here is, at any rate, some support for the ever-recurring
dream of rejuvenescence. And even if this be no more, at
least for the higher species, than a mirage of life, we may
at least suggest the possible fruitfulness of discussion,
perhaps even collaboration, between say one of Bose's
experimental assistants and one of the young neurologists
before whom the war has so strongly brought problems
of this nature.
CHAPTER X
IRRITABILITY OF PLANTS
As in the world of matter, so also in the world of thought,
there is an inertia which retards movement and change ;
and this is especially the case in the adoption of new
methods of scientific inquiry. Bose's ' Plant Response ' and
' Comparative Electro-Physiology ' (1906-7) gave detailed
descriptions of his methods, but want of opportunity of
following the practical demonstration stood in the way of
their wider adoption. In spite of this drawback, various
workers in different parts of the world followed closely
Bose's work, and employed his method with success. The
Optical Lever has been used in certain physiological
investigations in the Cambridge Laboratory ; van der
Wolk of Utrecht has followed with success Bose's lines
of investigation ; while his electro-physiological investiga-
tions have been incorporated in a course of advanced work
under Professor Harper at Columbia University, New York.
In response to a widely expressed desire that workers
in the West should become acquainted first-hand with the
practical working of his methods, the Government sent
Bose in 1907, on his third scientific deputation, to England
and America. After a short stay in England he visited
the United States, and lectured before highly appreciative
audiences in the different American Universities.
On his return to India Bose concentrated his attention on
the invention of a complete set of apparatus by which the
experimental plant would be automatically excited at definite
137
138 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
intervals of time by successive uniform stimuli. In answer
to this the plant should make its own responsive records,
and embark on the same cycle over again without any
assistance at any point from the observer. After several
years of trials and efforts, the problem was at last solved
to the utmost particular, both in refinement and with
high magnification. His instruments, embodying a new
principle, will no doubt react towards the improvement
of the relatively crude myograph of the physiologist. The
most important of the series of these instruments the
Resonant Recorder is based on the principle of sympathetic
vibration. The difficulty of friction of contact, which
made the direct record of the feeble plant-movement
impossible, is here completely eliminated. The sensibility
of the apparatus may be gauged from the fact that the
automatic records obtained by this instrument give
measurements of time as short as a thousandth part of a
second ; the results obtained with the instrument show
that the sensitiveness of the plant is not so feeble, and
its power of perception so sluggish, as have been supposed.
Inventions and discoveries are by some regarded as the
fortunate products of flashes of insight, and such minds
are reckoned as ' gifted ' accordingly, even up to ' genius '
a quality not further explained. For others genius
seems but the highest development of patience, and its
results as rewards of continuous attention and reflection.
As a matter of fact, both processes intermingle. Hence
for Newton the suggestive fall of the apple is insufficient
without his own answer, when asked how he came to
his discoveries : ' I know not, save it be by constantly
intending my mind thereunto.' Indeed the man of science,
despite his apparent gravity of aspect and of subject, is
peculiarly continuous with his own childhood. Hence,
when we watch a child striving to solve a puzzle, to make
a mechanical toy, or to build his bricks into a tower, we
see that very alternation of patient endeavours amid
failures, with moments of new constructive insight, which
IRRITABILITY OF PLANTS 139
make up the essential progress of science. In our day
everywhere, and not least in India, one who can do any
such things on the adult scale is reckoned an ' expert '
a term which again precludes further inquiry ; but the
inventor and the discoverer alike know themselves better,
and but advance in their childlike way by alternate steps,
not unmingled with falls, but guided by flashes of freshened
insight and hope.
On such general grounds, as well as for coming to a
further understanding of plant-movements, it is here worth
the reader's while to look into this problem, of how to
enable the plant to make its own record of its movements
whether in nature or under stimulus of altered conditions.
For one thing, the time-relations of every phase of move-
ment must be found, and determined with the physicist's
exactitude. Though for everyday use the second hand of our
watches marks our ordinary limit, the starter and judge
of a race, or the physician feeling a pulse, have to take note
of fractions of a second ; hence the stop-watch, with its
finer graduation, down to tenths of a second. But for
physical measurements far smaller fractions are often
necessary ; hence the interest of the tuning-fork, with its
hundreds of vibrations per second. Better still than the
tuning-fork is the vibrating reed ; for of this we may adjust
the length to any required quickness of vibration, within
a wide and sufficient range, say from ten to a thousand
times per second. It may easily be made to write its
tracings on a recording surface conveniently a smoked
plate. The vibrating reed soon gives off its initial energy,
but continuous vibration may be maintained by electric
means. The steel reed, with its required frequency of
vibration once adjusted, is made to dip its bent point into
a small cup of mercury ; so that the metallic contact
should start a current which passes through a small coil
wire fixed above the reed, and containing a soft iron of
core, which the current converts into a temporary magnet.
The attraction of the magnet upon the reed pulls it up out
140 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
of the mercury. But this stops the current. The small
electro-magnet thus becomes inert ; the magnetic attraction
ceases, and the reed is set free to swing and fall anew towards
and into the mercury thus renewing the current and with
FIG. io. Upper part of the Resonant Recorder. Thread
from clock, not shown, passes over pulley (P), letting
down recording smoked glass plate (G) ; C, coercing reed
which by its vibration sets recorder (V) in sympathetic
vibration. The axis of recorder (V) is supported per-
pendicularly at centre of circular end of magnet. S S',
adjusting screws ; M, micrometer ; T, tangent screw.
it the magnet, pulling up the reed and so on. Thus the
desired rhythm, appropriate to the reed's length, can be
maintained steadily, and for any required length of time.
So much for the Coercer of Bose's apparatus, which has
to set the resonating writer in sympathetic vibration.
This resonating writer a fine steel wire, with a bent
tip, and of length suitable to the required rate of vibration
is suspended vertically by means of pivots supported on
IRRITABILITY OF PLANTS 141
jewel bearings. One of the bearings is fixed at the centre
of a soft iron core, and the other bearing is carried by a
flat metallic plate. The soft iron core is surrounded by a
wire spiral through which flows the same current which
activates the reed ; so this second iron core becomes an
electro-magnet, and for exactly the same periods ; the reed
and the writer are kept in perfect unison. The bent tip
of the writer taps regularly upon a smoked plate, placed
at right angles to it. These taps must always be on the
same point so long as the recording surface is stationary ;
but if it be made to travel we shall get a row of dots,
made at the time-intervals predetermined. It was next
found most conducive to good records to let the plate descend
by its own weight, thus giving a vertical series of dots ;
for though successive distances between them are slightly
increasing in course of the acceleration of the falling plate,
this matters little for time-measurements, since their numbers
per second are identical. An ingenious compensatory device
has, however, been provided for use when required.
The tapping method has now secured a double advan-
tage : (i) the precisely comparable time-records, and (2) the
practical elimination of friction ; since the bent tip of the
writer gives a series of taps, and is therefore not in continuous
contact with the recording surface. A fine cocoon thread is
securely tied to the leaf to be observed, and its other end is
attached to the short arm of a very light wire lever which
has been already fixed to the writer. The movement of
the leaf pulls the writer to one side or other, giving dots
no longer in mere vertical row, but now recording every
movement of the plant. The conspicuous fall of the Mimosa
leaf, or the minutest quiver in pulsating leaflet or of con-
traction under a stimulus, will thus cause a pull on the
attached thread ; and this will be transmitted and magni-
fied by the writing lever. The dots are seen to lie in
definite and characteristic order; and the dotted curve
gives the whole history of the plant-movement from start
to finish.
142 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
The Resonant Recorder is shown complete and in use upon
the accompanying illustration (Fig. n). An actual record is
FIG. ii. General view of the Resonant Recorder and the electrical
connections by which excitatory shock of a definite duration is
given to the plant ; duration of shock determined by metronome,
which completes electric circuit.
given in the next figure which measures the time taken by
the plant to perceive and answer to the shock given at
IRRITABILITY OF PLANTS 143
the vertical line in the record. The successive dots are
at intervals of two hundredth part of a second, and the
leaf-movement began at the fifteenth dot after the shock
(Fig. 12). The perception -time of the plant is thus 0-75 of
a second. When the plant is fatigued, its perception-
time becomes very sluggish : when excessively tired, it tem-
porarily loses its power of perception. In that condition
the plant requires at least half an hour's absolute rest to
regain its equanimity.
For some purposes, however, the Resonant Recorder
FIG. 12. Record for determination of the latent period of leaf of Mimosa.
Shock given at vertical line ; successive dots at intervals of 0-005
second.
has its limitation. It measures movements which are
exceedingly quick ; there are, however, other movements
which are relatively slow, and Bose still needed an instru-
ment which could take slower records, lasting for hours
and days. Moreover, some movements may be so slight
and weak that even the recording system just described
being necessarily of magnetisable metal though at its
finest may be too heavy for the excessively limited
mechanical power of certain plant -movements.
Hence, instead of the writer oscillating so many times
per second, he now set the smoked glass plate oscillating,
to come up periodically against the point of the writer-
The oscillation can now be as slow as we please, since by
various ingenious adaptations of clockwork we can obtain
144 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. ROSE
any required period of oscillation in practice usually from
once in a second to once in a quarter of an hour, as may be
required while the oscillations and their dotted records
can go on as long as the winding of the clock is attended to.
Further, the mechanical mode of oscillation dispenses with
the necessity for the steel writer, and a light grass awn, or a
hair-drawn glass fibre, can take its place. In the Resonant
Recorder the magnification is limited by the proportions
of the writing lever, usually to 25 times or thereabouts ;
but now in the Oscillating Recorder with a single lever
this may easily be raised to 100 times, and with com-
pound lever to 10,000 times. The Oscillating Recorder,
moreover, admits of lateral extension, so as to carry four
plates, and it may have as many plants recording
themselves side by side at the same time under identical
conditions.
It is now time to see what results they have yielded.
First of all they afforded complete verifications of the
essential accuracy of the curves of plant-movements given in
the ' Plant Response ' taken by the simpler method of the
Optical Lever. The phenomena of nervous impulse were
demonstrated by the ' Resonant Recorder 'against the
generally accepted view that there was nothing in the
plant comparable to the nervous system in animals. Bose's
results were thus so convincing that the Royal Society
accepted them for publication in their ' Philosophical
Transactions ' (1913). Following this and the publication
of his ' Researches on Irritability of Plants/ Bose received
several invitations to lecture before different Universities
and scientific societies of Europe and America, and was
accordingly sent by the Government on his fourth scientific
deputation in 1914.
Bose determined not only to carry his delicate instruments
but also the plant-specimens Mimosa and Telegraph-
plant (Fig. 13) from India, so that they should give their
autographic records before the audience. In Europe most
of the plants go through their periods of hibernation in
IRRITABILITY OF PLANTS 145
the season when the scientific societies are in full
session. In a world-tour the carrying of his delicate
instruments was difficult enough ; but to take tropical
plants in hope of their retaining vigour and sensitiveness
in the freezing climates of Europe, and particularly of
America, seemed an impossible venture. But Bose, with
his characteristic determination and resourcefulness, faced
FIG. 13. The two plants Mimosa pudica and Desmodium
gyrans that accompanied Professor Bose round the world.
Ihe small leaflets of the Desmodium (to the right)
pulsate up and down.
the problem. A special glass case was provided for their
journey and every possible care taken of them by his
admirably devoted and skilled experimental assistant.
Only half the number of the plants survived the voyage,
but once in London they were safely housed in the Regent's
Park tropical greenhouse. This done, Bose fitted up his
temporary laboratory at Maida Vale, where the difficulties
connected with experiments on tropical plants transferred
to a cold climate were observed, and means devised to
overcome them.
He was now asked to lecture before various Universities,
and first at Oxford, where his demonstrations were received
146 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGAD1S C. ROSE
with high appreciation. Next at Cambridge, Sir Francis
Darwin presiding. Here also his audience was most
enthusiastic. In London he lectured before the Royal
College of Science. His Friday Evening Discourse before
the Royal Institution was given in May 1914, and proved
a great success. His Resonant Recorder registered the
speed of transmission of excitatory impulse, the Oscillating
Recorder traced the throbbing pulsations of the Telegraph-
plant, and demonstrated their striking similarity with the
pulse-beat of the animal heart. Finally, the Death
Recorder indicated by its tracing the death-throe of the
plant.
His private laboratory at Maida Vale was visited
by various scientific and literary men. Among these
were Sir William Crookes, then President of the Royal
Society, and other leading men of science. A very distin-
guished animal physiologist was so strongly impressed by
the unexpected revelations made by the plants that he
frankly blurted out : ' Do you know whose casting vote
prevented the publication of your papers on Plant Response
by the Royal Society ? I am that person. I could not
believe that such things were possible, and thought your
Oriental imagination had led you astray. Now I fully
confess that you have all along been right/
Among the men of letters came Mr. Balfour, who at
once saw the psychological importance of the discoveries.
Mr. Bernard Shaw, being a vegetarian, was unhappy to find
that a piece of cabbage was thrown into violent convulsion
when scalded to death. Editors of leading journals also
came, and the following departure from the usual gravity
of The Nation will indicate the popular impression made
by the new revelations of plant life :
In a room near Maida Vale there is an unfortunate carrot
strapped to the table of an unlicensed vivisector. Wires
pass through two glass tubes full of a white substance ;
they are like two legs, whose feet are buried in the flesh
of the carrot. When the vegetable is pinched with a pair
IRRITABILITY OF PLANTS 147
of forceps, it winces. It is so strapped that its electric
shudder of pain pulls the long arm of a very delicate lever
which actuates a tiny mirror. This casts a beam of light on
the frieze at the other end of the room, and thus enormously
exaggerates the tremor of the carrot. A pinch near the right-
hand tube sends the beam seven or eight feet to the right, and
a stab near the other wire sends it as far to the left. Thus can
science reveal the feelings of even so stolid a vegetable as the
carrot.
The Royal Society of Medicine also became keenly
interested in Bose's work on the effect of drugs on vegetable
tissues, and asked him to deliver a discourse before the
Society. Sir Lauder Brunton wrote to him :
Ever since I began the study of Botany in 1863, and still more
since I made some experiments on the action of poison on plants
in 1865, the movements of plants had a great attraction for me.
For Mr. Darwin I made some experiments on digestion in insecti-
vorous plants in 1875. All the experiments I have yet seen
are crude in comparison with yours, in which you show what a
marvellous resemblance there is between the reactions of plants
and animals.
The lecture before the Royal Society of Medicine was
highly appreciated by the leading members of the medical
profession, and the Secretary of the Society officially
addressed the Government of India, expressing their high
appreciation of the work which was ' so entirely new in
biological science.'
He was next invited to lecture before leading Universities
of the Continent. He first visited Vienna, where amongst
his audience were many leading physiologists of Austria
and Germany, who paid the generous tribute that ' Calcutta
was far ahead of them in these new lines of investigation/
In Paris he met with similar success. He received cordial
invitations from different German Universities for a series
of lectures. He was to have begun these lectures from
the 3rd of August, 1914, and was actually on his way
to Bonn, but fortunately was just in time to retrace
148 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
his steps and escape internment. Two nephews, then also
in Germany, were less fortunate.
He next visited America and lectured before a number
of the principal Universities there. He also addressed the
American Association for the Advancement of Science at
Philadelphia, and the New York and Washington Academies
of Science. At Washington he was invited to address
the State Department and also the Bureau of Agriculture,
where the great importance of his work in practical agri-
culture was fully realised. He lectured at Harvard before
the Departments of Philosophy and Psychology, and also
before Clark University, whose President, the well-known
psychologist, Dr. Stanley Hall, had been keenly interested
in Bose's work from his earliest publications. Everywhere
Bose's work received the warmest appreciation.
We may now return to the phenomena of Irritability,
so successfully explored by the invention of Bose's new
instruments. It is, however, impossible to give in such
short space all the interesting results ; and it must suffice
to give a few extracts from Bose's popular lectures.
One of his inquiries related to the physiological effect of
different gases on plants :
According to popular science, what is death to the animal
is supposed to be life for the plant : for does it not flourish
in the deadly atmosphere of carbonic acid gas ? But instead
of flourishing, the plant gets suffocated just like a human being ;
note the relief on readmission of fresh air (Fig. 14). Only in
the presence of sunlight is the effect modified, by photo-synthesis.
In contrast to the effect of carbonic acid, ozone renders the
plant highly excitable.
The plant is intensely susceptible to the impurities present
in the air. The vitiated air of the town has a very depressing
effect. Sulphuretted hydrogen, even in small quantities, is
fatal to the plant. Chloroform acts as a strong narcotic,
inducing a rapid abolition of excitability. The ludicrously
unsteady gait of the response of the plant under alcohol could
be effectively exploited in a temperance lecture. But the
IRRITABILITY OF PLANTS 149
next result is in the nature of an anticlimax, where the
plant has drunk pure water not wisely, but too well. The
gorged plant loses all power of movement. The plant was
restored to normal condition by extracting the excess of liquid
by application of glycerine.
Does the plant feel the depressing effect of darkness ? Fig. 15
records the effect of a passing cloud ; the slight variation of
light was detected by the plant much earlier than by the
observer. Any sudden change of light is found to [exert a
marked depressing effect. The plant partially regains its
FIG. 14. Depression of excitability under carbonic
acid and revival on readmission of fresh air.
sensibility when accustomed to darkness. When brought
suddenly from darkness to ligrit, there is also a transient
depression followed by enhanced excitability.
Again as to the effect of wounds :
I undertook three investigations, on the effect of wounds on
plants. The first enquiry is as to the effect of injury on growth ;
the second is the change manifested in the pulse-beat of rhythmic
tissues in plants. The third investigation had for its object
the study of the paralysing effect of wounds.
In the first of these the normal rate of growth and change of
that rate by injury were found from the automatic records given
by the Crescograph. When the growing plant was pricked with
150 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
a pin, the normal rate was at once depressed to a fourth, and it
took about two hours for the plant to recover from the effect
of the pin-prick. A slash made with a knife was found to
arrest the growth, the inhibition persisting for a very long
period. Severe shock caused by a wound thus retards the
growth in normal healthy specimens.
The reactions in exceptional cases are highly interesting.
Certain plants, for reasons at present obscure, remain} stunted
FIG. 1 5. Depressing effect of a passing cloud on the response of Mimosa.
in growth, the branches and flea ves presenting an unhealthy
look. Lopping off the offending limb, curiously enough, is found
good for the plant. The stimulus of severe shock renews the
growth that had remained arrested.
Another series of investigations was carried out with the
leaflet of the Telegraph plant, which pulsates up and down,
like the movement of a semaphore. When the leaflet is cut
from the parent plant, and the cut end placed in water, the
pulsation is found to be arrested by the shock of operation.
After a time the pulse-throb is slowly renewed, and maintained
for nearly 24 hours. But death had found an unguarded
spot at the wound ; and its march, though slow, is sure. The
death-change thus reaches the throbbing tissue, which becomes
IRRITABILITY OF PLANTS 151
permanently stilled" with the cessation of life (Fig. 16). But the
rate of the death-march has been successfully retarded by means
of nourishing solutions ; the throbbing life of the cut leaflet
has thus been prolonged from one to seven days.
In cutting off the leaf of Mimosa the sensibility of the plant
is paralysed for several hours. The paralysing effect of the
wound was determined by means of testing shocks, the response
being at the same time taken down by the automatic recorder.
The parent plant gradually recovered, and showed signs of
returning sensitiveness. The detached leaf also recovered its
sensibility in a few hours, and exhibited its normal responses.
But this vehemence lasted only for a day, after which a curious
change crept in ; the vigour of its responses began rapidly to
FIG. 1 6. Abolition of pulsation at the death of the
plant.
decline. The leaf, hitherto erect, fell over death had at last
asserted its mastery.
As regards the comparison of the general phenomenon
of Irritability in plants and animals, Bose says :
We find that the plant is not a mere mass of vegetative
growth, but that its every fibre is instinct with sensibility. We
find it answering to outside stimuli, the responsive twitches
increasing with the strength of the blow that impinges on it.
We are able to record the throbs of its pulsating life, and
find these wax and wane according to the life conditions of the
plant, and cease with the death of the organism. We find
the different parts of the plant are connected together by
conducting threads, so that the tremor of excitation initiated
at one place courses through the whole, this nervous impulse,
as in man, being accelerated or arrested under the several
actions of drugs and poisons. In these and in many other
. 152 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
ways the life reactions of plant and man are alike ; thus through
the experience of the plant it may be possible to alleviate the
sufferings of man.
Bose thus concluded his Royal Institution Discourse :
These our mute companions, silently growing beside our door,
have now told us the tale of their life-tremulousness and their
death-spasm in script that is as inarticulate as they. May it
not be said that their story has a pathos of its own beyond any
that we have conceived ?
In realising this unity of life, is our final sense of mystery
deepened or lessened ? Is our sense of wonder diminished
when we realise in the infinite expanse of life that is silent and
voiceless the foreshadowing of more wonderful complexities ?
Is it not rather that science evokes in us a deeper sense of awe ?
Does not each of her new advances gain for us a step in that
stairway of rock which all must climb who desire to look from
the mountain-tops of the spirit upon the promised land of
truth?
CHAPTER XI
THE AUTOMATIC RECORD OF GROWTH
THE movement of the leaf of Mimosa is very sudden and
conspicuous, while the movement of growth is almost
imperceptible. But the large movements of stems, leaves
and roots under the action of various forces such as light,
warmth and gravity are ultimately due to excessively
minute variations in the rate of growth. The discovery
of laws relating to the movement of growing organs thus
depends on accurate measurement of normal growth and
its changes. Apart from theory, the subject is a matter of
great practical importance since the world's food supply
is so intimately dependent upon vegetative growth.
The extreme difficulty of the investigation arises from
the extraordinary slowness of growth ; of this we may
form some idea from the following examples. Taking
the annual growth in height of a tree to be five feet, which
is a liberal estimate, it would take a thousand years for
growth to cover a mile. The slowness of the snail is pro-
verbial, but its pace is 2000 times faster than the average
movement of growth. Yet one more instance. We take
a single step, covering two feet in about half a second ;
during this period the plant grows through a length of
i ooooo P ar t of an inch, or half the length of a single wave
of light. It is evident that some very strongly magnifying
arrangement must be employed to observe growth and
its changes. The instrument hitherto used in the botanical
laboratory the ' auxanometer ' magnifies about twenty
153
154 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. ROSE
times or so. Even here several hours must elapse before
growth becomes perceptible ; but during this long period
the external conditions such as light and warmth can
hardly but change, thus confusing, if not even vitiating,
the results.
The external conditions can be kept constant only for
a few minutes ; and it is therefore necessary to obtain
growth-magnification to something like ten thousand
times. The difficulty of obtaining such magnification is
*so great that it took Bose about eight years to overcome
it, and his ' High Magnification Crescograph ' (Fig. 17)
may be regarded as a veritable triumph in invention. The
apparatus not only produces this enormous magnification,
but also automatically records the rate of growth and its
changes, in a period as short as a minute.
Bose employs for the purpose a compound system of
two levers ; the first magnifies a hundred times, and the
second enlarges the first a hundredfold, the total magnifi-
cation being thus 10,000 times. But the double system
of levers introduces difficulty on account of their weight ;
this was surmounted by the employment of an alloy of
aluminium, which combines great rigidity with excep-
tional lightness. The friction at the bearings increased by
the deposit of invisible dust particles introduced a further
difficulty ; bearings even made of ruby did not obviate
the trouble. Bose was finally able to devise a new form of
suspension by which all difficulties were fully overcome.
These high magnification records show that growth is
often not steady and continuous, but proceeds in rhythmic
pulses. In normal Calcutta conditions these average
about three per minute. Each pulse exhibits a rapid
uplift, and then a slower and partial recoil, amounting to
a recession of about a fourth of the distance at first gained ;
and from the resultant progress it starts for its next rise.
Our mental image of the growth-process is thus transformed
by these tracings from a steady mechanical progress to
that of the wavelets of a rising tide. Still, there are also
THE AUTOMATIC RECORD OF GROWTH 155
tracings in which growth appears as practically uniform ;
but such may be due to the resultant of the growth-pulses
at different levels and in different layers of tissue. Another
2xample of the extreme sensitiveness of the apparatus is
FIG. 17. The High Magnification Crescograph. P,
plant ; C, clockwork for periodic oscillation of re-
cording smoked glass plate (G) ; S S', micrometer
screws ; K, crank ; R, eccentric ; W, rotating wheel.
seen from the fact that it even detects the retardation of
growth caused by a mere touch, while a more violent
irritation arrests growth altogether. Though rough hand-
ling is harmful to a vigorous plant, Bose found that its
effect was, however, beneficial to a plant which had
remained backward in its growth. Corporal punishment
has therefore its uses !
156 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
Peculiarly obvious is the result of any temperature
change upon the rate of growth. The application of cooled
water of course depresses, until at the critical minimum
all growth is arrested. Conversely, warmed water may
effect an astonishingly rapid increase of growth, even by
many times, up to the optimum ; beyond which growth
is increasingly retarded, until at about 60 C. the death-
spasm appears.
By a further refinement of experimentation, an auto-
matic method provides records of a plant's growth during
gradual increase of temperature from minimum to maxi-
mum ; and the inspection of this ' Thermo-crescent Curve '
informs the observer of the rate of growth at each and
every temperature. The method hitherto employed was
to place batches of plants to grow for a day in different
temperatures, and to average the results of each batch ;
but the new method is at once far simpler, speedier and
far more accurate.
Similarly the effect of manures and chemicals, drugs
and poisons, may now each be determined in the course of
a few minutes, and with unprecedented accuracy. Here
too, as in the preceding cases, we realise the value of this
high magnification apparatus : not merely because all
the phenomena are rendered far clearer and more con-
spicuous, but also because the result of any particular
change of conditions can be detected in the course of a few
minutes, during which the other conditions may remain
constant, or be artificially kept so.
It will be understood that it is only by the discovery of
laws of growth that any marked advance in scientific
agriculture is possible. We have been using only a few
stimulating agents, whereas there are thousands of whose
actions we have no conception. The rule of thumb method
hitherto employed in the application of a few chemical
stimulants and of electricity has, moreover, not been
uniformly successful. The cause of the anomaly is found
from the discovery of an important factor namely, the
THE AUTOMATIC RECORD OF GROWTH 157
dose of application, which had hitherto not been taken
into account. Thus Bose found that while a particular
intensity of electrical current accelerated growth, any
excess above a critical point retarded it. The same was
true of chemical stimulants. A striking practical result
was obtained with certain poisons which in normal doses
killed the plant, but in quantities sufficiently minute
acted as an extraordinarily efficient stimulant, the treated
plants growing far more vigorous and flowering much
earlier. The treated plants, moreover, successfully resisted
the insect blights. Such facts lead to the inquiry into
the critical point at which depressant passes into a stimu-
lant, or conversely. At this point we see how a fresh line
of research has here been opened for Pharmacology and
Medicine. And similarly another for speedily testing the
action of manurial agents, and other means of accelerating
growth for Agriculture. The immediate test needs only a
few minutes instead of a season, while the changing con-
ditions of the latter are avoided.
Very striking also is the personal equation of the given
plant, i.e. its permanent ' constitution ' and its changing
' tonus.' The latter is found to be experimentally modifi-
able. Thus a given batch of similar seedlings was divided
into three groups : one was kept normal for reference,
another depressed by less favourable temperature to a
sub-normal condition, and the third put in an optimum
condition. The small dose of poisons which the normal
plants could just survive after a period of struggle was
found to produce immediate death in the sub-tonic speci-
mens ; but the same dose actively stimulated and exalted
the growth of the super-tonic ones. Here, again, suggestive-
ness for medicine and for agriculture will be manifest.
The most perplexing phenomena in the life of plants
are the ' tropic movements/ which will be described in a
subsequent chapter. They are generally brought about by
the action of the environment inducing slight modifications
158 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGAD1S C. BOSE
in the rate of growth. No satisfactory explanation of these
movements has been forthcoming, since the apparatus
in use was too crude 'to detect the variation of growth-
rate, which was itself very minute. But with the High
Magnification Crescograph, Bose succeeded in obtaining
tracings which measured the rate of growth as small as
nnsVjnr i nc h P er second. He was thereby able to record
changes induced in normal growth by the action of various
agents, by contact, by variation of temperature, by radiant
heat and light, by the stimulus of gravity, by electrical
currents, and by various chemical agents. From these
fundamental reactions he was able, as we shall see later,
to offer a complete explanation of the diverse movements
in plants.
After observing in the laboratory the extraordinary
sensitiveness of this Crescograph with its magnification of
ten thousand times, the writer offered the opinion that
surely the utmost perfection had at last been reached ;
but to this Bose made the naive and cryptic rejoinder that
' man is never satisfied ' ; and forthwith began to push on
his investigations towards obtaining still higher magnifica-
tion. He at first tried increasing his system of levers from
two to three. But he soon found that, though theoretically
possible, a limit to magnification is imposed on account
of additional weight, and friction at the linking of one lever
to another. He therefore thought of a weightless lever,
and of linking without material contact. This he succeeded
in effecting by the invention of his Magnetic Crescograph
(Fig. 18) ; here the movement of the lever of his ordinary
Crescograph upsets a very delicately balanced magnetic
system. The indicator is a reflected spot of light from a
mirror carried by the deflected magnet. In this way Bose
obtained a range of magnification from one to a hundred
million times.
Our mind cannot grasp magnification so stupendous. We
can, however, obtain some concrete idea of it by finding what the
f.
FIG. 18. The Magnetic Crescograph for magnifying imperceptible growth
of plants ten million times.
FIG. 23. Localisation of the geo-perceptive layer by means of the Electric
Probe. Diagram represents the geo-perceptive layer in unexcited
vertical and excited horizontal position (see text, p. 189).
THE AUTOMATIC RECORD OF GROWTH 159
speed of the proverbial snail becomes when magnified ten million
times by the Magnetic Crescograph. For this enhanced speed
there is no parallel even in modern gunnery. The fifteen-inch
cannon of the Queen Elizabeth throws out a shell with a muzzle
velocity of 2360 feet per second or about 8 million feet per hour ;
but the Crescographic snail would move at a speed of 200 million
feet per hour or 24 times faster than the cannon shot. Let us
turn to cosmic movements for a closer parallel. A point on the
equator whirls round at the rate of 1037 miles per hour. But
the Crescographic snail may well look down on the sluggish
earth ; for, by the time the earth makes one revolution, the
snail would have gone round nearly forty times !
Bose has been using his Magnetic Crescograph for
demonstration purpose before large audiences. The move-
ment of the spot of light indicating magnified growth is
seen to rush across the screen. A stop-cock is turned on,
admitting cooled water into the vessel containing the plant.
The movement of the spot slows down and ultimately
comes to a stop : the growth activity is now held in a
state of arrest, a thermometer indicating the exact tem-
perature-minimum. The plant-chamber becomes gradually
warmed, and with the removal of lethargy the growth-
movement is renewed, gathering increasing speed. Another
stop-cock turns on a depressing agent, and the growth
becomes paralysed ; but a dose of a stimulant instantly
removes the depression. The life of the plant becomes
subservient to the will of the experimenter ; he can exalt
or depress its activity ; he may thus bring it near the
point of death by application of poison, and when the plant
is hovering in an unstable poise between life and death
resuscitate it by the timely application of an antidote. It
all looks like magic ! But are not the achievements of
science more wonderful than magic ?
'It is by the extension of man's power beyond his
sense-limitations that he is enabled to probe into the
deeper mysteries of nature.'
The enthusiasm aroused during Bose's recent scientific
visit to England (1919-20) is not a little due to the
i6o LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
extraordinary advance in investigation rendered possible by
his Crescograph. No experimental conditions for exhibition
of growth could have been more difficult than in the depth of
an English winter, when the plants were in a state of hiber-
nation. In spite of this they were madejio shake off their
stupor, and the rate of growth was exhibited by the indicating
spot of light rushing across a jo-foot scale in the course of
some twelve seconds, the actual rate being less than a hundred
thousandth part of an inch per second.
Bose's magnifying methods, which far surpass the
powers of the ultra-microscope, are now calling him back
to employ them for the continuation of his physical re-
searches, which have been interrupted for nearly twenty
years. He foresees the possibility of making a new Micro-
Radiometer, also a galvanometer of surpassing sensitive-
ness, and other finer detectors for the exploration of the
effect of forces on inorganic matter. Though he is opposed
to the classifying barriers used to divide the branches of
knowledge, yet he is true to his old love. He is still a
physicist without its implied limitations, trying to include
in its imperial domain the realm of the living, and to use
the subtler skill he has learned from its exploration to
reveal activities which seem only to be veiled by the
apparent inertness of matter.
CHAPTER XII
VARIOUS MOVEMENTS IN PLANTS
As a teacher of botany for nearly forty spring and summer
seasons, and from the first interested in certain plant-
movements, and also in trying to teach the elements of
vegetable physiology in practical classes, the writer has
had some experience of the intricacies and obscurities of
the subject. From Sachs, the great teacher of vegetable
physiology in our young days, he received inadequate light ;
and though Darwin's ' Movements of Plants ' (1889)
seemed helpful, and his discovery of ' circumnutation '
for him a common property of shoots and leaves, and
even of roots, from which more specific movements might
be viewed as evolutionary specialisations under definite in-
fluences was highly attractive, yet this theory did not fully
carry conviction. For such records of circumnutation might
be but complex resultants of the plant's responses to many
changing conditions. But how to analyse these ? Experi-
ments and observations have of course increased, and
also attempts to co-ordinate and interpret them ; witness
the portly third volume of Pfeffer's great ' Vegetable
Physiology,' which is very largely thus occupied, but still
without bringing to the subject the needful simplicity
and generalisation. We now see a twofold reason for this
failure of vegetable physiology hitherto. First because the
vegetable physiologists, despite many and praiseworthy
endeavours, but with their imperfect instrumentation
and correspondingly slow and little magnified records, could
162 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
not fully succeed in the needful analysis of the different
environmental factors and their resultant responses. But,
as we have seen above, the experimental resources of
instrumentation and record have now been raised to an
entirely new level through Bose's labour. And secondly,
because of the inadequate recognition of organic control
in the plant, fully analogous to that presented by animal
life in fact what we have always recognised in the animal
as essentially associated with nerve action.
The reader may here fairly ask, What clearer inter-
pretation of plant-movements not only of the motile
organs of Mimosa and its like, but of other movements
associated with growth is now being obtained through
these advances ? A fully adequate answer to the question
will be found in Bose's recent volumes on ' Life Movements
in Plants ' ; here we must endeavour to give such an outline
of main results as may be possible within the present narrow
limits, alike of space and of avoidance of technicalities.
So instead of following the order of existing treatises, or
even of Bose's own discoveries, which have been partly
determined by circumstances, let us start with such move-
ments of plant responses as seem simplest and most un-
differentiated, and thence proceed to the subtler and more
evolved .
To realise concretely something of the problem of
vegetable physiology in general and of plant-movement
in particular, let the reader imagine himself accompanying
a botanist among his students in the garden some day
when he is pointing out to them many of the phenomena
of plant-movement with which they have broadly to
acquaint themselves in living nature before proceeding
to their experimental studies.
Here, then, are seedlings in abundance, alike in cultiva-
tion and as springing weeds. Some are growing erect in
ordinary light ; others in shaded corners are bending
their stems to the light, and exposing their cotyledons and
young leaves accordingly. This may lead us to notice the
VARIOUS MOVEMENTS IN PLANTS 163
way in which the leaves of many plants expose their upper
surfaces as fully as may be to the light, partly, as we may
see, in terms of their spiral origin upon the stem, though
with definite individual and collective adjustments, and
of various kinds. Thus a rosette-plant, like Dandelion,
may have its leaves all practically on the ground-level ;
but where there is some little stem, the lower leaves may
have longer stalks, so as not to be shaded by those
above. In most herbs and shrubs, when we look at
their leafage from the mid-day sun's point of view,
we may often admire the co-adjustment by which leaves
avoid shading each other, fitting themselves into a pattern,
often recalling those of wall-papers, or stuffs adorned
with decorative plant-designs. For this there is manifestly
some adjustment : some movement has taken place to
turn this and that leaf into a better position for light than
that of their simple and regular development upon the
stem. This further adaptation is effected through the
varying growth and movement, not only adjusting the
level of the leaf, but also, it may be, twisting it ; and we
seek to note how this is done. It is often effected by
the more or less enlarged and swollen-looking, because
turgid, leaf -base, the ' pulvinus/ which is conspicuous
in many plants, and highly sensitive in Mimosa.
There are many other adaptations for that quest of
light on which the whole green world depends, and to
utilise which is the essential photo-synthetic activity of the
leaf, on which all animal life also depends, directly or
indirectly. Here, for instance, is the great practical value
of the stem and copious branches of tall herbs and shrubs,
and above all of trees ; for by the help of these they more
and more increase their available leaf area for light exposure,
so that a single tree of moderate magnitude is enabled by
the vast collective surface of its leaves to absorb a very
large amount of light.
The light-quest of the plant-world appears in yet more
striking ways, so that each organ may find its place in
164 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
the sun. And there are many means besides that of
individual strengthening of stem to attain stature. Weak
stems, like those of roses on the lower levels, or of lofty
climbers, may scramble up by help of hooking prickles upon
the solid stem-plants, and so get the better of them. Others
again climb in gentler though not less efficient ways, like many
tendril-bearers, e.g. peas and vines. Yet others swing their
slender growing shoots, and so become twiners, like the convol-
vulus, the hop, and many more among herbs. Many have
shrubby, tough and rope-like stems like clematises, or even
attain the fullest loftiness, like the lianas, which often grow
to almost tree-like stems, twisted constrictor-fashion round
their victims. Some again can climb on rocks and walls,
like Ivy with its adhesive stem-roots, or like Ampelopsis
with its tendrils cementing their tips to their supports.
Yet even of life-sustaining light, plants may have
more than they can bear, especially when water, their
other necessity, is scanty. Hence we note plants which
turn their edges to the light, like many peas to some extent,
and some eucalyptuses much more ; and others yet more
completely, like the famous Compass-plant of America.
And though the palms and bananas bear their immense
leaves in full sunshine, even these are not without some
moderative adaptations ; while many plants have reduced
the ordinary size of leafage of their family, sometimes even
to the leaf-stalks, or to the stipules, parts which every one
may have noticed at the base of the rose-leaf. Thus the
acacias of desert regions, as notably in great tracts in
inland Australia, may lose the beautiful bipinnate leaves
so characteristic of their genus, sometimes indeed only
producing one or two in the seedling, and henceforward
have but leaf-stalks, flattened out in somewhat leaf-like
fashion, yet now vertically instead of horizontally so as to
catch less light, and also of tough and leathery character,
so as to reduce the transpiration of water. Extreme cases
are found in the Cactus and the Euphorbia families ; for
here the leaves may vanish early, or even be represented by
VARIOUS MOVEMENTS IN PLANTS 165
mere prickles or hairs, leaving the swollen stem, which now
remains green, to do such slow and limited vegetation as
it can in their place whence sometimes its flattening as
in the prickly pears, or its ridging in yet more reduced forms.
Many other forms attract us ; for the plant in its evolu-
tion is like Proteus in his changing dance through the
world and throughout life, and with the same extreme and
dramatic contrasts. Leaving the cactus forms standing
immobile like pillars, or lying like stones upon their rocks
(sometimes only distinguishable from rocks by the scrutiny
needed for mimetic form), we turn to moister situations.
Here we may even find a variety of plants increasingly
sensitive, up to the Mimosa itself, for which Bose's long
years of research serve to express, and to deepen, the
age-long wonder of the children of every age since man was
intelligent at all. Less conspicuous sensitives there are,
which suggestively to evolutionists lead back to the
common and passive forms (yet these as Bose has shown
merely passive-looking) ; while conversely we also find
that further marvel of the Telegraph-plant (Desmodium),
which to Bengal children seems to move to the clapping
of their hands. It moves child-like, but in its own way:
with its restless signal-like leaflets rising and falling by
day and night alike, while health endures, and through-
out the season. From utmost apparent passivity, then,
we find activity more tireless than any animal's, and
seeming no less determined from within.
So we might go on ; but questions meantime have been
arising among the students assuming them to be students,
and not merely those parrots of the cram-book cage, into
which evil enchanters, of Eastern traditions and Western
convention alike, have so largely transformed them. The
botanist guide is asked at every turn How is this ? And
how is that ? How did the seedling shoot grow up, and
how does the root go down ? And how of this upset one,
trying, and successfully, to right itself anew? The book
answer of the crammed parrot is too much like that one
166 LIFE AND WORK :OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
for which Moliere's invaluable satire on would-be medical
and scientific education two centuries and a half ago is still
needed. ' Why does opium make one sleep ? ' ' Because
it has a dormitive virtue/ replies the candidate, and
passes with ' honours ' accordingly. So the earthward root
has ' geotropism/ an earthward property. And why does
the shoot ascend in the very opposite direction ? By
' negative geotropism ' surely the very poorest term in
science for this loftiest adventure of life upon the globe.
And why does the branch of the leaf stand out laterally ?
By ' dia-geotropism ' !
Again, how do leaves turn to light ? In virtue of their
' heliotropism ' or ' phototropism.' Yet why sometimes
also turn from the light ? By ' negative phototropism.'
And so on. This facile verbalism gives us ' hydro-
tropism ' for the root's water-quest, and ' rheotropism
when roots in water are observed to bend against the
stream ; ' chemotropism ' for its utilisation of salts, and
so on. The tendril's touch is its ' thigmotropism ' ; and
there are yet more uncouth names.
Intellectual activities have their verbalisms, their
confusions and misdirections, as well as emotional ones ;
and these may also accumulate into what are practically
diseases. Every science of course needs its technical
terminology as definite, precise and full as need be ;
but all have suffered from verbosity of nomenclature,
and notoriously botany most of all. Thus apart from
the systematic names for each and every species and order
which are of course indispensable there are some fifteen
or twenty thousand technical terms in the botanical
dictionaries, of which the majority have lapsed; but too
many still survive, even in modern text-books, to the
perplexity of the student ; too many even of these are given
him by his professor in lectures, and still he uses too many
himself, though fewest of all. It is of real advantage
for the advance of our science, as well as of necessity for
its most general understanding, to reduce this nomenclature
VARIOUS MOVEMENTS IN PLANTS 167
to its necessary technical and logical minimum, without
impairing sufficiency.
There are so many cases and kinds of plant-movements
that terms have gone on multiplying far faster than the
understanding of them. True, despite all this superficial
nomenclature, and by the very authors of it, there have
been many experimental endeavours to elucidate and
interpret the real causes underlying these phenomena,
i.e. to observe and measure the effects of various stimuli,
as of light and others. Yet the terminology employed
is not only redundant, but often wrong. And though
Pfeffer summarises the literature of the subject up to
the coming of Bose, and often with research and inter-
pretation of his own, and uses these terms with
moderation, since after all they do help to group the obvious
phenomena, he so far sees their limitations. For the
terms employed give no explanation of the phenomena
they are used to connote.
' When we say that an organ curves towards a source
of illumination because of its heliotropic irritability, we
are simply stating an ascertained fact in a conveniently
abbreviated form without explaining why such curvature
is possible, or how it is produced/ 1
The weakness of the situation is recognised by
Pfeffer's clear-headed translator, Professor Alfred Ewart,
who also protests against this excess of names, and with
the needed general criticism : ' Error lies in supposing that
a dissimilar response necessarily indicates a totally distinct
form of irritability, and hence needs a new term, or that
phenomena are made simpler or easier to understand by
giving them a classical terminology/
Great uncertainty thus prevails as regards the explana-
tion of various movements of plants. Hence the need for
Bose's thoroughgoing reinvestigation of the phenomena ;
and these now taken in relation with the sensitiveness to
1 H. Pfeffer, Vegetable Physiology (Clarendon Press), 1903, ii. 74.
168 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
all forms of stimuli and the resulting response, which he
has demonstrated in the growth and life of ordinary plants.
Hence, too, the need of comparative study of all those
vegetable responses, not only in relation to each other,
but in comparison with the response of inorganic matter
on the one hand, and of animal muscle and nerve on the
other. But the study of such nervous phenomena, in
higher animals and in man, have long been under inquiry
by the psycho-physiologist or physiological psychologist ;
and if their organic substratum, their physiological pro-
cesses, be now demonstrated in the vegetable world, the
study of some of their elemental psychological bearings
can hardly but be of comparative and evolutionary
suggestiveness also. In this way Bose is widening out
our range of inquiry far beyond the initial outlooks of our
gardens ; or rather, let us say, those outlooks are deepening,
and beyond all previous anticipation.
After this garden ramble, which might of course have
been extended to notice many other examples of plant -
movements, we start Bose (as it is happily easy to do, for
no man can be fuller of his subject, or more willing to
explain it) to give us a fresh outline of his discoveries and
their interpretations. He cannot begin better than with
his long-loved Mimosa ; and in this he first sets us clearly
to observe the form and movements. We note the long
leaf-stalk or petiole rising from the distinct and swollen
leaf -base or ' pulvinus/ which we soon find to be the
main sensitive organ, and especially its lower surface ;
we also see it to be the pivot from which the leaf falls.
Next, at the far end of the leaf-stalk, we note the four
secondary petioles, which answer to the two basal pairs
of pinnae in a compound Acacia leaf. As in this, they
bear on each side a row of small leaflets, the pinnules, of
which each has its base distinctly swollen, as a ' pulvinule.'
But the leaflets show up-movement, whether independently
excited, or when the main leaf falls. The main sensibility
VARIOUS MOVEMENTS IN PLANTS 169
of their pulvinules is thus found to be more on their upper
surface, the very opposite from that of the main pulvinus.
Besides these two movements in opposite planes, down and
up respectively, we see that the midway pulvini, those
of the four main leaf divisions, behave differently again ;
for though they may fall a little, their main movements
bring all four almost close together from their normal
divergent position, so their sensibility must obviously be
in each case on their sides, and in right and left pairs. A
wonderful leaf-mechanism, with its tri-dimensional con-
trast ; yet after all in analogy with that of our own build.
The leaf thus visualised, and its sensitive working
practised on, till we can in various ways not only make a
whole leaf fall, and thence all the rest, but also stir a single
leaflet, and so compel the fall of the whole leaf, and even
thence of other leaves through the plant. We thus prove
conductivity of impulse in each direction. We are now
ready for finer observation, experiment and interpretation.
First the older explanation, still surviving in text-
books ; Pfeffer had offered a hydro-mechanical theory of
transmission of stimulus, and Haberlandt the very best of
microscopic analysts of plant-tissues, since most devoted
to applying his observations towards the interpretation
of their uses and functionings in detail had offered, and
with fairly general acceptance by physiologists, a too simple
explanation of the fall of the Mimosa leaf. He compared
its pulvinus to an indiarubber tube filled with water and
tied in at both ends so having a definite hydrostatic
pressure of turgescence, and which, when a pinch is given
at one end, of course exhibiting an increase of pressure, and
even a certain flow, which are transmitted along the tube
as an undulatory wave.
It is here worth noting clearly that in this contrast
of interpretations of transmission of stimulus (i) as essen-
tially hydro-mechanical, for most vegetable physiologists
hitherto, but (2) as fundamentally ' excitatory ' for Bose
that it is our physicist who has here taken up the
170 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
essential physiological point of view, and the physio-
logists who had so far lost it. For they were thinking
but anatomically that, since their sections had not revealed
any striking nervous tissue like that of animals, nothing
nervous could be there : whereas, had they held to
their own fundamental experience and conception of the
physiology of living protoplasm that it presents respira-
tion, though without gills ; digestion, though without
stomach ; and movement, though without muscles they
would have realised the possibility of conduction of excita-
tion without a highly developed nervous system. Moreover,
intercellular continuity between vegetable cells has now long
been known to microscopists ; and this not only in many
cellular tissues, but more distinctly in and throughout
certain elements of nbro-vascular bundles, in which there
is more or less protoplasmic continuity, which is essential
for conduction of excitation, and to these it was not un-
reasonable to suspect conducting powers. Just as Lavoisier
at once grasped the universality of the principle of the
respiration process in living beings, and boldly correlated
this with the process of oxidation, from slow rusting to
active combustion, on the inorganic plane, so Bose, with
similar range of comparison, has made and verified the
analogous step with regard to irritability in the plant and
transmission of excitation to a distance, thus extending
our conceptions of the highly evolved muscle and nerve
of animals to the simpler, yet fully similar contractile cells
and conducting tissues in plants.
Bose's researches on conduction of excitation in plants
have now received full acceptance, and his conclusions are
published in the ' Philosophical Transactions ' of the Royal
Society. 1 In this paper Bose was able to show that the
transmission is not hydro-mechanical, as has been previously
supposed, for the impulse was shown to be initiated in the
complete absence of any mechanical disturbance. All the
1 ' On an Automatic Method for the Investigation of Velocity of Trans-
mission of Excitation in Mimosa,' Philosophical Transactions, vol. 204.
VARIOUS MOVEMENTS IN PLANTS 171
characteristics of the nervous impulse in the animal were
shown to be present in the corresponding impulse in the
plant ; thus rise of temperature accelerated the velocity
in both, lowering of temperature causing a retardation or
arrest. Anaesthetics and poisons arrested the impulse in
an identical manner.
The crucial test of a new theory is in its power of pre-
dicting phenomena hitherto unknown, and Bose's prediction
of certain unexpected characteristics of impulse in animal
nerve has recently been verified. Bose discovered that
the nervous impulse in plant is of a dual character, a
positive followed by a negative. The positive gives rise
to expansion and erectile movement of the motile leaf ;
the negative on the other hand gives rise to contraction
and down movement of the leaf. Certain investigations
now being carried out by Bose seem to indicate that the
nervous impulse in the animal may also exhibit a dual
character. Of still higher importance is the possibility
of control of nervous impulse, for which Bose obtained his
clue from investigations carried out with plants. He was
thus able to confer on the nerve two opposite ' molecular
dispositions ' at will. Under one disposition the nervous
impulse was greatly enhanced during transit, and under
the opposite disposition it was retarded or became arrested.
We shall, in a subsequent chapter, dwell on the high
significance of these results.
CHAPTER XIII
THE RESPONSE OF PLANTS TO WIRELESS STIMULATION
THE distinction that used to be drawn between plants and
animals, that the former did not possess any conducting
tissue analogous to the nerve of the animal, has been by
Bose's work proved to be groundless. It was nevertheless
urged that the sensibility of plants was comparatively of a
very low order. Bose undertook to show that this was by
no means the case. The most sensitive organ for the
perception of electric current is the tip of the human tongue,
and a European can detect by his tongue a current
as feeble as 6 micro-amperes, a micro-ampere being the
millionth part of a unit of electric current. Bose's pupils,
however, possessed a higher sensibility, inasmuch as some
of them could detect a current which was only 4-5 micro-
amperes. This highly sensitive tongue was then matched
against the sensitive leaflet of the plant Biophytum. A
very feeble current which could be gradually increased was
passed through the tongue and the leaflet, and when it
reached the intensity of 1-5 micro-ampere the leaflet
wagged in response, while the overrated tongue had
nothing to tell as regards its perception of the current,
which had to be increased threefold before it was per-
ceived. Thus by this test the plant was three times more
sensitive than the Hindu and four times more so than
the European !
A record has already been given in a previous chapter
(Fig. 15), which shows that the plant becomes depressed
172
(RESPONSE TO WIRELESS STIMULATION 173
by a slight diminution of daylight, which is hardly
noticed by a human observer.
Bose also found that the growth of plants was affected
by changes in the environment which were below the limit
of human perception. For this new range of investigation
he had to turn his attention to a new type of apparatus,
the sensitiveness of which had to surpass those which he
had already invented. The High Magnification and the
Magnetic Crescograph enabled him to measure the most
minute rate of growth. For the detection of the effect of
impact of external stimulus, he had first to measure the
normal rate, and afterwards the changed rate induced by
the stimulus. The effect of stimulus, whether stimulating
or depressing, could be found from calculation of the
difference in the two cases. He now wished to eliminate
the necessity for calculation and the consequent loss of
time. The idea that now possessed him was to devise a
new method which would instantly show by the up or down
movement of an indicator the accelerating or retarding
effect of the agent on growth.
The desideratum was to compensate the up-movement
of growth by some regulating device ; this involved the
problem of making the plant descend at the exact rate at
which the growing tip of the plant was rising, whatever that
rate may be. Some such regulator has to be introduced as
in the compensating movement of an astronomical telescope,
by which the effect of earth's movement round her axis once
in twenty-four hours is neutralised. But the problem that
confronted Bose was far more difficult, for instead of com-
pensating a definite rate he had to obtain adjustment for
widely varying rates of growth in different plants, and even
of the same plant under different conditions.
The difficult problem was successfully solved in his
Balanced Crescograph (Fig. 19). A train of revolving clock-
wheels, actuated by the fall of a weight, lowers the plant
exactly at the same rate at which it is growing. The exact
adjustment is obtained by the gradual turning of a screw
174 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
to the right or to the left, by which the rate of compensating
fall is retarded or accelerated. In this way the rate of
growth becomes exactly compensated, and the recorder
now dots a horizontal line instead of the former curve of
ascent. The turning of the adjusting screw of the Balanced
FIG. 19. The Balanced Crescograph. Compensation of growth-movement
produced by equal subsidence of the holder containing the plant (P).
Adjusting screw (S) regulates the speed of the governor (G). W, heavy
weight actuating clock-work.
Crescograph also moves an index against a circular scale (not
shown in the figure) so graduated that its reading at once
gives the rate at which the plant is growing at that instant.
When balanced, the recording apparatus is extraordinarily
sensitive. Any change, however slight, in the environment
is at once indicated by the upset of the balance with up
or down movement of the curve. This method is so
extremely sensitive that Bose has been able to detect
variation of rate of growth so excessively minute as
millionth of an inch per second.
RESPONSE TO WIRELESS STIMULATION 175
As an illustration of the delicacy of this method, a
record is given of the effect of carbonic acid gas on
growth (Fig. 20). A jar is filled with this gas, and emptied
over the plant ; the invisible gas, on account of its heavier
weight, falls in a stream and surrounds the plant. The
FIG. 20. Record showing the effect of car-
bonic acid gas on growth. Horizontal
line at the beginning indicates balanced
growth. Application of carbonic acid gas
induces enhancement of growth, shown
here by up -curve, followed by depression,
exhibited by down - curve. Successive
dots at intervals of ten seconds.
record shows that this gave rise to an immediate accelera-
tion of growth, and this continued for two and a half
minutes ; this preliminary acceleration was followed by
retardation of growth as shown by the down curve. With
diluted carbonic acid, the acceleration may persist for an
hour or more. Thus the Balanced Crescograph not only
shows us the beneficial effect of an agent, but also tells us
the dose which prolongs the beneficial effect.
Plants are regarded as extremely sluggish : and it is
176 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
thought that they are unable to perceive a stimulus
unless applied for a considerable length of time. Thus for
the perception of geotropic stimulus it is supposed that
' even in rapidly reacting organs there is always an interval
of about one to one and a half hours, before the horizon-
tally placed organ shows a noticeable curvature, and this
latent period may in other cases be extended to several
hours (Jost).' Bose finds that the latent period of geo-
tropic perception is often as short as a second.
As regards perception of light, it has been supposed
that the period of effective exposure must at least be of
seven minutes' duration. With his extraordinarily sensitive
apparatus Bose investigated the question of the plant's
capability to respond to stimulus of light of excessively
short duration. We can hardly conceive of anything so
fleeting as a single flash of lightning. Bose now subjected a
growing plant, balanced in his Crescograph, to an artificial
flash of lightning that is to say, to the light emitted. by a
single electric spark between two metallic balls. The plant
perceived this light of incredibly short duration, as was
manifest from the upset of the balance, and the resulting
automatic script made by the plant.
So much as regards the perception of plants to minimum
duration of stimulus. The next question is as regards their
range of perception, and Bose's astonishing discovery of
the response of plants to wireless stimulation has caused
something like a sensation among the scientific public.
The account of this discovery is best told in Bose's own
words taken from the second volume of the ' Transactions '
of his Institute, and from his letter in Nature :
A growing plant bends towards light ; this is true, not only
of the main stem, but also of its branches and attached leaves
and leaflets, This movement in response is described as the
tropic effect of light. Growth itself is modified by the action
of light : two different effects depending on the intensity are
produced ; strong stimulus of light causes a diminution of rate
of growth, but very feeble stimulus induces an acceleration of
RESPONSE TO WIRELESS STIMULATION 177
growth. The tropic effect is very strong in the ultra-violet
region of the spectrum with its extremely short wave-length
of light ; but the effect declines practically to zero as we move
towards the less refrangible rays, the yellow and the red, with
their comparatively long wave-length. As we proceed further
in the infra-red region we come across the vast range of electric
radiation, the wave-lengths of which vary from the shortest
wave I have been able to produce (0-6 cm.) to others which may
be miles in length. There thus arises the very interesting question
whether plants perceive and respond to the long aether-waves,
including those employed in signalling through space.
At first sight this would appear to be very unlikely, for the
most effective rays are in the ultra-violet region with wave-
length as short as 20 x io~ 6 cm. ; but with electric waves used
in wireless signalling we have to deal with waves 50,000,000
times as long. The perceptive power of our retina is confined
within the very narrow range of a single octave, the wave-
lengths of which lie between 70 x io~ 6 cm. and 35 x io~ 6 cm.
It is difficult to imagine that plants could perceive radiations so
widely separated from each other as the visible light and the
invisible electric waves.
But the subject assumes a different aspect when we take into
consideration the total effect of radiation on the plant. Light
induces two different effects which may broadly be distinguished
as external and internal. The former is visible as movement ;
the latter finds no outward manifestation, but consists of an ' up '
or assimilatory chemical change with concomitant increase of
potential energy. Of the two reactions, then, one is dynamic,
attended by dissimilatory ' down ' change ; the other is potential,
associated with the opposite ' up ' change. In reality, the two
effects take place simultaneously ; but one of them becomes
predominant under definite conditions.
The modifying condition is the quality of light. With refer-
ence to this 1 quote the following from Pfeffer : ' So far as is at
present known, the action of different rays of the spectrum gives
similar curves in regard to heliotropic and phototactic move-
ments, to protoplasmic streaming and movements of the chloro-
plastids, as well as the photonastic movements produced by
growth or by changes of turgor. On the other hand, it is the
less refrangible rays which are most active in photosynthesis.'
The dynamic and potential manifestations are thus seen to
be complementary to each other, the rays which induce
178 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
photosynthesis being relatively ineffective for tropic reaction,
and vice versa.
Returning to the action of electric waves, since they exert
no photosynthetic action they might conceivably induce the
complementary tropic effect. These considerations led me to
the investigation of the subject fourteen years ago, and my
results showed that very short electric waves induce a retarda-
tion of rate of growth ; they also produce responsive movements
of the leaf of Mimosa when the plant is in a highly sensitive
condition. The energy of the short electric waves is very
feeble, and undergoes great diminution at a distance ; hence
the necessity for employment of a plant in a highly sensitive
condition.
I resumed my investigations on the subject at the beginning
of this year. I wished to find out whether plants in general
perceived and responded to long aether-waves reaching them
from a distance. The perception of the wireless stimulation was
to be tested, not merely by the responsive movement of sensitive
plants, but also by diverse modes of response given by all kinds
of plants.
The Wireless System. For sending wireless signals I had to
improvise the following arrangement, more powerful means not
being available. The secondary terminals of a moderate-sized
Ruhmkorffs coil were connected with two cylinders of brass,
each 20 cm. in length ; the sparking took place between two
small spheres of steel attached to the cylinders. One of the two
cylinders was earthed and the other connected with the aerial
10 metres in height. The receiving aerial was also 10 metres in
height, and its lower terminal led to the laboratory, and connected
by means of a thin wire with the experimental plant growing in a
pot ; this latter was put in electric connection with the earth.
The distance between the transmitting and receiving aerial was
about 200 metres, the maximum length permitted by the grounds
of the Institute.
I may state here that with the arrangement described above
I obtained very definite mechanical and electric response to
wireless impulse. For the former I employed the plant Mimosa ;
the latter effect was detected in all plants, sensitive and ordinary.
Effect of Wireless Stimulation on Growth. For the detection
of variation of growth it was necessary to devise the extremely
sensitive Balanced Crescograph. In this apparatus a compensat-
ing movement is given to the plant -holder by which the plant
RESPONSE TO WIRELESS STIMULATION 179
subsides exactly at the same rate as its growth-elongation, so
that the tip of the plant remains at the same point. This perfect
balance is attained by a variable regulator. The compound
magnifying lever attached to the plant records the movement of
growth. Under exact balance the record is horizontal. Any
induced acceleration of growth upsets the balance and, with the
particular arrangement of the apparatus, causes a resulting
FIG. 21. Record of responses of plant to wireless stimulation, (a) Re-
sponse to feeble stimulus by acceleration of growth ; (6) response to
strong stimulus by retardation of growth ; (c) response to medium
stimulation retardation followed by recovery. Down-curve repre-
sents acceleration, and up-curve retardation of growth (seedling of
wheat).
down record ; induced retardation, on the other hand, brings
about an upset in the opposite direction and an up curve.
The results given above (Fig. 21) show that growing plants
not only perceive, but also respond to the stimulus of electric
waves. These effects were found in all growing plants. The
records were obtained with the seedling of wheat.
Effect of Feeble Stimulus. I first studied the effect of feeble
stimulus. This was secured by decreasing the energy of
sparks of the radiator. The response was an acceleration of
rate of growth as seen in Fig. 21 (a). This is analogous
i8o LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
to the accelerating effect of light stimulation of subminimal
intensity.
Effect of Strong Stimulus. The maximum energy radiated
by my transmitter, as stated before, was only moderate. In
spite of this, its effect on plants was exhibited in a very striking
manner. The balance was immediately upset, indicating a
retardation of the rate of growth (Fig. 21, b). The latent
period, i.e. the interval between the incident wave and the
response, was only a few seconds. The record given in the figure
was obtained with the moderate magnification of 2000 times
only ; but with my Magnetic Crescograph the magnification
can easily be raised ten million times, and the response of
plant to the space-signalling can be exalted in the same
proportion.
Under an intensity of stimulus slightly above the subminimal,
the response exhibits retardation of growth followed by quick
recovery, as seen in the series of records given in Fig. 21 (c).
The perceptive range of the plant is inconceivably greater
than ours ; it not only perceives, but also responds to the
different rays of the vast sethereal spectrum.
These revelations are as unexpected as they are start-
ling. They show that the pretension of man and animals
for undisputed superiority over their hitherto despised
' vegetative brethren ' does not bear the test of close
inspection.
CHAPTER XIV
TROPISMS
WE have now to refer to the various tropic movements
of plants in response to the multifarious stimuli of their
environment ; the stimulus may be (i) of touch, in conse-
quence of which tendrils twine round their support ; (2) of
the action of light, under which the plant-organs move
sometimes towards, and at other times away from, light ;
(3) of the action of gravity, which causes opposite move-
ments in the shoot and the root, the shoot moving upwards
and the root downwards. There are also numerous other
complicated movements associated with the recurrence of
day and night. The intricacies and apparent contradictions
of the responsive movements are so baffling that no con-
sistent explanation appeared possible. This led to the
supposition that a particular movement was due to some
unknown specific sensitiveness ; organs possessed of positive
sensitiveness moved towards the stimulus, while others
characterised by negative sensitiveness moved away from it.
Such use of merely descriptive phrases is, however, no
real explanation of the phenomena. The idea of specific
sensibility is, moreover, quite untenable when we find cases
where, under continued stimulation, an organ moves at first
towards the stimulus and afterwards away from it. An
identical organ cannot evidently be possessed of both the
positive and the negative sensibility.
Bose pursued for many years the quest of discovering
some fundamental reaction which was at the basis of
' 181
182 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
phenomena so extremely diverse. What, then, is the
characteristic reaction in response to stimulus, and what
are the agents which cause stimulation ? The term
' stimulus ' has been used, in vegetable physiology, in a vague
and indefinite sense, giving rise to much confusion. Thus
light and warmth have both been regarded as stimuli ;
but Bose was able to show that they bring about physio-
logical effects which are diametrically opposite to each
other. He carried out long series of experiments, the results
of which enabled him to classify factors which cause
stimulation. He showed that, generally speaking, agents
which cause a contractile twitch in animal muscle also
bring about the contraction of plant- tissue. The following
modes of stimulation are thus found effective in causing
excitation of vegetable tissues : (a) Mechanical (contact
or friction, prick or wound) ; (b) radiation (the entire
aethereal spectrum including visible light, radiant heat
and electric waves) ; (c) electrical (make or break of a
current, induction shock and condenser discharge) ;
certain chemical agents also act as stimuli. The first great
generalisation established by Bose is that the direct appli-
cation of all forms of stimuli, mechanical, electrical or radiant,
cause similar physiological response of contraction.
He next shows that the excitation caused by stimulus
may remain localised or transmitted to a distance according
to the conducting power of the particular tissue. In this
respect there are numerous gradations of highly conducting,
semi-conducting and non-conducting tissues. Taking the
sensitive plant Mimosa as the type possessing high power
of conduction and a motile pulvinus, he demonstrates the
sensitiveness of the plant by all modes of stimulation and
the consequent response. He shows how the sensitiveness
of the under surface, eighty-fold greater than that of the
upper, was measured ; as also how he determined the speed
of transmission of excitation from petiole onwards, usually
at 30 mm. per second. This speed, while inferior to that in
higher animal nerve, notably surpasses that of lower animals,
TROPISMS 183
like the mussel, so that we are ready to understand how he
and his assistants can now dissect out a petiole-pulvinus
preparation for investigations as definite and complete as
those long familiar to physiologists of the nerve and muscle
of a frog, and with his present apparatus carry their in-
quiries substantially further. 1 He shows in this connection
that in Mimosa the conducting power in a transverse
direction is only -^ that in the longitudinal direction of
the stem.
We may next take the case of tissues in which the power
of conduction is exceedingly feeble ; the contraction caused
by direct stimulus remains, in this case, localised. A very
remarkable reaction is, however, produced at a distance,
which is of a diametrically opposite character and distin-
guished as the ' Indirect ' effect of stimulus. The effect
of ' Direct Stimulus ' applied immediately on the responding
surface is a diminution of turgor, a contraction and a
negative electrical variation shown by the galvanometer.
The effect of ' Indirect Stimulus ' is, on the other hand, an
increase of turgor, an expansion and a positive electric
indication. The discovery of this hitherto unsuspected
effect of Indirect Stimulus is one of Bose's most far-reaching
results ; for many of the apparent contradictions in the
responsive movements in plants are shown to be due to this
very important factor having remained so long unknown.
We may next proceed to Bose's special contributions
to the understanding of plant-movements. A very im-
portant generalisation established by him is the unity of
reaction in all plant -organs, growing and non-growing.
Most significant of these advances towards the under-
standing of the movements brought about by growth, is
the conception, experimentally worked out, that the
growing organ and its responses are like those of Mimosa
pulvinus and its responses. He records the effect of
all forms of stimulus on growth, and shows that direct
1 Transactions of the Bose Institute, vol. i., 1918.
184 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
stimulus checks growth or brings about an ' incipient '
contraction ; when the intensity of stimulus is increased,
the effect culminates in an actual contraction. This is
exactly parallel to the contraction in the pulvinus under
direct stimulus.
He next demonstrates the effect of Indirect Stimulus
(applied at some distance from the responsive region of
growth). This produces an expansion and acceleration of
the rate of growth. The opposite effects of Direct and
Indirect Stimulus are diagrammatically shown in Fig. 22
(a and b). He thus establishes his Law of Effects of Direct
and Indirect Stimulus :
Direct Stimulus induces contraction ; Indirect Stimulus
causes the opposite effect of expansion.
The same law applies when stimulus acts on one side
of the organ. When stimulus of any kind acts on the
right side (Fig. 22, c), the directly stimulated right side
contracts and the indirectly stimulated opposite, or left
side expands, with the result of tropic curvature towards
the stimulus. And from these fundamental reactions,
experimentally demonstrated, Bose explains the diverse
movements brought about by the various forces of the
environment.
He thus leads us to the explanation of the movements
of tendrils. Whether these be branch-like, i.e. at first
uniform and radial, or from the first more or less bifacial,
like the leaves, leaflets or stipules which also often develop
into tendrils in all these the same reactions to direct and
to indirect stimulus appear. Hence it is that the rubbed
tendril contracts towards this direct stimulus, and its
coiling in this useful direction is thus not a special marvel
of natural selection between alternative chances, but is of
the nature of all response (though of course the selectionist
may then fairly emphasise its special and useful develop-
ment). From this simple beginning onwards, all tendril-
behaviour may be worked out in detail.
TROPISMS
185
The many cases of the lightward movement of plant-
growth of which every one must have noticed some, as of
plants grown in a window may next be understood in the
main ; since the light acts upon the stem and leaf-stalks
FIG. 22. Effects of Direct and Indirect Stimulus.
(a) Stimulus applied Directly at the growing region inducing retardation
of growth or contraction as represented by dotted line. Stimulated
area represented in this and in following by shade.
(b) Stimulus applied Indirectly (at some distance from growing region)
gives rise to acceleration of growth and expansion.
(c) Stimulus applied to right side of organ causes contraction of that
side and expansion of the opposite side, thus giving rise to positive
curvature towards stimulus.
(d) Excitation transmitted to the opposite side causes neutralisation.
(e) Excitation caused by intense stimulation is transmitted across and
thus reverses the normal curvature to negative, i.e. away from
stimulus.
just like the touch of the support upon the tendril. For
in this case again the directly stimulated side is contracted
and the opposite side is expanded, so bending the shoot
light wards.
When the light is very strong and long continued the
over-excited plant-organs may begin to turn away : how is
this effected ? Bose's experiments show that the strong
excitation percolates into and traverses the stems and
1 86 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
petioles, and provokes their contraction on the further
side, thus neutralising their former bending (Fig. 22, d).
The organ now places itself at right angles to the light,
and this particular reaction has been termed dia-helio-
tropism. In certain cases the transverse conductivity of
the organ is considerable ; the result of this is an enhanced
excitation and contraction of the further side, while the
contraction of the near side is reduced on account of fatigue
caused by over-excitation. The organ thus bends away
from light or exhibits the so-called negative heliotropism
(Fig. 22, e}. These effects are accentuated when one side of
the organ is more excitable than the other. But in every
one of these cases the tracings obtained by Bose's self-
recording apparatus show first a movement towards light,
then neutralisation, and finally a movement away from
light. In this way a continuity of reaction is demonstrated,
proving that the assumption of specific positive and
negative heliotropic sensibility is unjustified.
With this comprehension of the dual effects of light-
stimulus, the adjustment of leaves to receive light and
also in certain cases, as above noticed in the garden, to
escape excess of it may alike be unravelled : since we now
see that the more or less sensitive surface of the pulvinus on
which the leaf -adjustment usually depends may be variously
affected, even to definite twistings, as when a leaf-organ
is placed edgewise to the light.
So far, then, for these common phenomena we have
now got a simple and uniform dynamic explanation behind
the familiar utilitarian one. But every botanist knows
cases of further difficulty. The common Indian cress
(Tropaeolum) turns towards light in winter, but away
from it in summer. Bose shows that the conduction of
' nervous ' excitation in the plant is exalted, as in the
animal, by the rise, and lowered by the fall, of temperature.
The transverse conduction of excitation is thus enhanced
by higher temperature in summer ; the excitation in
this season more easily percolates across the stem,
TROPISMS 187
reversing the normal positive curvature seen in winter. It
will thus be seen how diurnal, seasonal and climatic factors
may bring about modification in the response.
Next we pass to ' Geotropism, Positive and Negative/
the explanation of which offered difficulties almost un-
surmountable. From the youngest seedling to the lofty
tree, the shoot rises upwards, while the roots descend.
When laid flat, or inverted, the plant begins to right itself,
shoot and root turning in their respective directions. The
righting of the shoot is very manifest, and on the great scale,
in corn ' laid ' by the rain, of which the nodes soon renew
growth-activity and so raise the shoot anew. In itself,
the organism is thus as definitely bi-polar in its way as
is a magnet in its own. In and for this characteristic
behaviour gravity is evidently the external factor, to
which the organism has to adjust itself. Yet to understand
what may be this functional co-adjustment of organism
and environment has long been puzzling botanists. It
was at first thought that the descending root might be
merely sinking under its weight ; but with a basin of mercury
set below it, the root forces its way down against this potent
resistance, which would, of course, float it w r ere it passive.
Again, how can the shoot rise tens, even hundreds, of feet
against gravity ? And how can the same uniform stimulus
of gravity produce dual and contrary effects ?
For the solution of these most difficult problems Bose
undertook investigation on the following subjects :
1. What is the mechanism of the movement of response
under the stimulus of gravity ?
2. Which is the particular layer of cells which perceives
the stimulus and acts as the sense-organ ?
3. What is the reason of the opposite signs of response
in the shoot and in the root ?
The research necessitated the invention of new methods
of investigation of extreme delicacy and reliability ; of
these may be specially mentioned the Method of Geo-
electric Response, and the Localisation of Geo-perceptive
i88 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
Layer by means of the Electric Probe. A description of
the methods and their applications will be given presently.
As regards the mechanism of the up-curving of a hori-
zontally laid stem, it may be due either to the expansion of
the lower or contraction of the upper surface ; and no
experimental test had been devised to decide between the
two alternatives the prevalent opinion, however, being
that the movement was due to expansion. Here then is
an apparent exception to Bose's demonstration that all
forms of stimulus induce contraction as their direct effect,
and expansion as the indirect effect.
In order to subject the question to a crucial test, Bose
devised his extremely delicate electric method to find
whether the upper side of the horizontally laid stem remains
passive or exhibits an active state of excitation. He had
in his previous work on ' Comparative Electro- physiology '
demonstrated that the state of excitation in a vegetable
tissue is exhibited by two simultaneous reactions of con-
traction and of an electric change of negative sign. Thus
the state of active excitation of any point of the tissue can
be detected with the greatest certainty by means of a
galvanometer. Bose connected two sides of a stem with the
galvanometer, and the displacement of the stem from the
vertical to the horizontal position was immediately followed
by the clearest indication that the upper was the excited
side. The electrical response w r as found to increase as the
angle of inclination to the vertical was increased from zero
to 90 degrees. This direct stimulus of the upper surface
involves its contraction and results in the geotropic
curvature of the stem upwards.
The next puzzling question is in regard to the sense-organ
which enables the plant to perceive the vertical direction and
move accordingly. We get our idea of direction of force
of gravity by means of plumb-lines, and our own orienta-
tion in space is so far understood as dependent on the
semicircular canals associated with the internal ear ; and
TROPISMS 189
these are believed to function through the effect of gravity
on their contained fluid in our varying positions, and its
changing flow and pressure with our movements. In
water animals, whose specific gravity is little different
from that of the water they inhabit, heavy solid bodies
come into service : the large ' otoliths ' of the fish's ear,
and the sand-grains, mingled with tactile hairs, in the
lobster's. So if it be by such stimulus of solid particles,
with their always vertical fall, that animals are oriented,
must not the solid granules of various composition, albu-
minoid, starchy and other, which are found free in many
vegetable cells, have a similar action on their protoplasm
and practically serve as otoliths, giving the needed signal
and stimulus for proper orientation? Definite layers of
starch grains have been found in microscopic sections of
the plant, and from anatomical considerations of their dis-
tribution the theory of statoliths has been ably advocated
by Noll, Haberlandt, Nemec and others.
The direct test needed for the localisation of geo-
perceptive layer is, however, the physiological reaction
of the living plant, giving unmistakable signal of its
perception of geotropic stimulus as it is disturbed from
its normal vertical position. Bose now worked out the
highly original device of his Electric Probe, by means of
which he is able to explore the interior of the plant and
detect the state of excitation in its different layers . Suppose
G and G 1 to be the layers of cells in a stem concerned in
the perception of the stimulus of gravity, G G 1 being the
longitudinal section of an annular ring (Fig. 23, p. 158). As
long as the stem remains vertical, geotropic stimulation will
be absent, but inclination to the vertical will cause irritation.
Bose's Electric Probe consists of an exceedingly fine platinum
wire, enclosed in a capillary glass tube, the probe being
electrically insulated except at the extreme tip. When
the probe, suitably connected with a galvanometer, is
slowly thrust into the stem so that it enters one side and
comes out at the other, the galvanometer will by its
igo LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
deflection show the state of irritation of every layer of cell
throughout the organ. Holding the stem vertical, Bose
sent his exploring probe step by step across the organ and
found no sign of local excitation. The passage of the probe
itself, it is true, causes a slight irritation, but this is reduced
to a minimum by making the probe excessively fine and by
making the passage of the probe very slow.
The case will be very different w r hen the stem is dis-
placed from the vertical to a horizontal position. The
geotropically sensitive layer now perceives the stimulus
and becomes the focus of irritation ; the state of excitation
is, as explained before, detected by negative electric response
exhibited by the galvanometer, and the electric variation
would be most intense at the perceptive layer itself ; the ex-
citation at the perceptive layer will irradiate into the neigh-
bouring cells in radial directions with intensity diminishing
with distance. Hence the intensity of responsive electric
change will decline in both directions outwards and inwards.
The distribution of the excitatory change, initiated at
this perceptive layer and irradiated in radial directions, is
represented in the right hand of Fig. 23 (p. 158) by the depth
of shading, the darkest shadow being on the perceptive
layer itself. Had excitation been attended with change of
light into shade, we should have witnessed the spectacle of
a deep shadow, vanishing tow r ard the edges, and spreading
over the different layers of cells during displacement of
organs from vertical to horizontal ; the shadow would have
disappeared on the restoration of the organ to the vertical
position.
Different shades of excitation in different layers are,
however, capable of discrimination by means of the insu-
lated electric probe, as it is pushed into the organ from
outside. In actual experiment the probe exhibited in-
creasing excitatory electric change during approach to the
perceptive layer, which reached its climax when the
probe came in contact with that layer. When it passed
beyond this point, the electric indication of excitation
TROPISMS 191
underwent rapid decline and abolition. The electric indi-
cation at the perceptive layer itself became abolished as
soon as geotropic stimulus was removed by the restoration
of the organ to the vertical position. Bose is thus able
to map out the contour lines of physiological excitation
inside a living organ.
After localising by means of his electric explorer the
perceptive layer, Bose made section of the organ and found
that the particular cells contained large-sized starch-grains,
which were instrumental in causing gravi-perception by
their weight.
If the fall of the heavy particles on the sensitive ecto-
plasmic layer of the lower side of the cells be the cause of
geotropic excitation, then the geotropic response should
take place after an interval necessary for the heavy particles
to fall from the base to the side of the cell. This period
could not exceed more than a few seconds, but the geo-
tropic reaction, as hitherto observed, seemed to be initiated
much later after periods varying from several minutes
to an hour or more. Bose, however, with his magnifying
recorder, was able to detect the commencement of geotropic
curvature in less than a minute ; his electric method also
showed the latent period not to exceed a few seconds.
In geotropic response the only anomaly that remained
was in regard to the response of the root being opposite to
that of the shoot. Bose showed that every cut portion of
the growing region of the shoot responds to the stimulus
of gravity by bending upwards. The growing region of the
shoot is therefore both sensitive to stimulus and responsive
to it. Hence geotropic stimulation of the shoot is direct.
But this is not the case with the root. Here it is the tip
of the root which perceives the stimulus, for Darwin showed
that when the root-tip is amputated the root loses its
orientation. The actual geotropic bending takes place
in the growing region at some distance from the tip.
The stimulus is received at the tip and transmitted to
the distant responding region of growth. Hence geotropic
192 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. ROSE
stimulus acts indirectly in the root. Bose had shown that
the effects of direct and indirect stimulus on growth are
antithetic ; it therefore follows that the responses 'of shoot
and root to the direct and indirect stimulus must be of
opposite signs.
Bose went further and carried out direct experiments
on the characteristic responses of the root. He applied
various forms of stimuli, first directly on the responding
growing region of the root, and found that the induced
curvature was "towards the stimulus; he next applied the
same stimuli on one side of the root-tip, and the response
was by movement away from the stimulus. His generalisation
that direct stimulus and indirect stimulus induce opposite
responsive movements became verified even in the case
of roots.
Objections had been raised about Darwin's experiment
on the decapitation of roots abolishing geotropic response ;
it was urged that the shock of operation might of itself
abolish all sensibility. In order to meet this objection
Bose carried out his electric experiments on the reaction
of different zones of intact root under the stimulus of
gravity. When he made his electric contact at one side
of the root-tip, displacement of the root from vertical to
horizontal position at once gave the negative electric response,
showing that the root-tip had become directly stimulated.
Restoration of the root to the vertical position was followed
by disappearance of all signs of irritation. He next applied
his electric contact at the responding growing region of the
root, which on displacement from a vertical to a horizontal
position gave rise to positive electric response, which is the
indication of indirect effect of stimulus. By this crucial
experiment carried out on an intact plant Bose was able
to establish an underlying unity even in responses which
appeared to be so diametrically opposite.
CHAPTER XV
THE SLEEP OF PLANTS
DIFFERENT organs of plants are in a state of constant
movement which is not immediately noticeable. But a
striking change is observed in their respective positions
at day and night. The explanation of this particular
phenomenon of Nyctitropism has hitherto proved very
baffling, as will be seen from the following summary given
by Jost in his ' Physiology of Plants/
Many plant organs, especially foliage and floral leaves, take
up towards evening positions other than those they occupy by
day. Petals and perianth leaves, for example, bend outwards
by day so as to open the flower, and inwards at night so as to
close it. ... Many foliage leaves also may be said to exhibit
opening and closing movements, not merely when they open and
close in the bud, but also when arranged in pairs on an axis they
exhibit movements towards and away from each other. In
otru cases, speaking generally, we may employ the terms
night-position and day-position for the closed and open con-
ditions respectively. The night-position may also be described
as the sleep-position. ... A completely satisfactory theory of
nyctitropic movements is not yet forthcoming. Such a theory
can only be established after new and exhaustive experimental
research.
Bose has recently carried out a complete investigation
on the subject, the results of which are given in Vol. II of
the 'Transactions of the Bose Institute/ Without enter-
ing into details, it may be said that the new advance
here consists in distinguishing for a series of simple
193 o
194 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
cases chosen as typical the various factors which are
predominant, as notably the response (i) to variation of
temperature, (2) to variation of light, and (3) to the varia-
tion geotropic response under daily variation of tem-
perature. This last phenomenon, hitherto unsuspected, is
the determining cause of a very large number of day and
night movements. In many instances the resulting effect
is due to different combinations of various factors. Light
and heat may be strong or weak ; moreover, radiant heat
has quite the opposite effect to that of mere raising of
temperature ; light may give rise to after-effects, and the
plant's responses may also vary from simple to more or
less multiple and automatic. Thus the independent
variables are many. Calculation shows the possible
variety of effects to be enormous, and observation in-
creasingly shows that nature has realised no small number
of these. Bose's demonstration of the reaction in typical
cases will enable the inquirer to predict the effect of
combination of different factors.
His success in these investigations is due to the
perfection of his newly invented apparatus by which the
movement of the plant becomes automatically recorded
throughout the day and night. The periodic variation
of environmental conditions is also recorded at the same
time by his thermograph and recording photometer.
Confirmatory experiments are carried out where light
is maintained constant, the plant being subjected to the
daily variation of temperature ; in others the temperature
is maintained constant, and it is the diurnal change of
light and darkness that affects the plant. The results of
such protracted investigation enabled him to unravel the
complexities of the daily movement of different plants.
The following extract from Bose's popular lecture given
at his Institute will be found interesting as regards the
' sleep ' and ' waking ' movements of the water-lily
Nymphaea, and the investigation which led to the discovery
of the cause of this movement.
THE SLEEP OF PLANTS 195
THE NIGHT-WATCH OF NYMPHAEA
The poets have forestalled the men of science. Why does the
water-lily Nymphaea keep awake all night long and close her
petals during the day ? Because the water-lily is the lover of
the Moon, and like the human soul expanding at the touch of
the Beloved, the lily opens out her heart at the touch of the
moon-beam, and keeps watch all night long ; she shrinks
affrighted by the rude touch of the Sun, and closes her petals
during the day. The outer floral leaves of the lily are green,
and in the day-time the closed flowers are hardly distinguishable
from the broad green leaves which float on the water. The
scene is transformed in the evening as if by magic, and myriads
of glistening white flowers cover the dark water. The recurrent
daily phenomenon has not only been observed by the poets, but
an explanation offered for it. It is the moon-light then that causes
the opening of the lily, and the sun-light the movement of
closure. Had the poet taken out a lantern in a dark night,
he would have noticed that the lily opened its petals at night
in total absence of the moon ; but a poet is not expected to
carry a lantern and peer out in the dark ; that inordinate
curiosity is characteristic only of the man of science. Again
the lily does not close with the appearance of the sun ; for the
flower often remains awake up to eleven in the forenoon. A
French dictionary maker saw Cuvier the zoologist about the
definition of the crab as ' a little red fish which walks backwards.'
' Admirable ! ' said Cuvier. ' But the crab is not necessarily
little nor is it red till boiled ; it is not a fish, and it cannot walk
backwards ; but with these exceptions your definition is perfect.'
And so also with the poet's description of the movement of the
lily, which does not open to moon-light nor yet close to the sun.
Nor has the scientific explanation hitherto offered proved
more satisfactory. The eminent plant-physiologist Pfeffer
regarded the ' sleep and waking movements ' to be due to
the recurring action of light and darkness, of sunrise and
sunset. The opening and closing of the water-lily has,
however, little or no connection with the rising or setting
of the sun ; the opening could not be due to setting sun
for the flower remains open in light up to about n o'clock
in the morning ; neither could it be due to the rising sun,
ig6 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGAD1S C. BOSE
since the flowers are already open at night. Finding that
light exerted little or no effect, Bose turned his attention
to the action of daily variation of temperature.
We may next enquire whether the daily variation of tempera-
ture has any effect in producing the alternate movement of
opening and closing of the lily. If the curve of movement of the
flower resembled the curve of variation of temperature, we
should then have no hesitation in ascribing the floral movement
to diurnal change of temperature. In the determination of the
influence of temperature on the movement of the flower it is
therefore necessary to obtain a diurnal record of the movement
of the petal, and also that of the change of temperature through-
out the 24 hours.
The automatic recorder should thus fulfil two different
requirements. It should, in the first place, record the magnified
movement of the petal, and indicate the time when such move-
ment took place ; it should also trace the fluctuation of tempera-
ture, both the rise and fall, throughout day and night. For
obtaining magnification of movement, one of the petals of the
flower is attached by a fine thread to the arm of a light lever
made of fine aluminium wire. The lever is supported on jewel
bearings which reduce the friction to a minimum. The tip of the
longer arm of the lever is bent so as to serve as a writing point.
This traces the magnified record of the movement of the petal
on a smoked piece of glass, which is moved by clockwork through
its entire length in 24 hours. The tip of the writer rubs off the
smoke where it touches, and thus leaves a white line on a dark
background. The difficulty met here is that there is a consider-
able friction at the point of contact of the writer with the glass
plate. The free movement of the flower is thus greatly ham-
pered and the record thus becomes distorted. This difficulty is
overcome by keeping the glass plate, for a greater part of the
time, away from contact with the writing point. By a special
contrivance of clockwork, the plate is made to approach the
writing point intermittently, say once every fifteen minutes.
The successive dots thus record the movement of the leaf during
successive quarters of an hour during day and night.
There now remains the method of recording the diurnal
variation of temperature. For this I use the simple device
of a compound strip, made of the more expansible strip
of brass, soldered to the less expansible strip of steel.
THE SLEEP OF PLANTS 197
When temperature rises, the brass expands more than the
steel ; hence the compound strip undergoes a curvature, the
brass surface becoming convex. The free end of the strip is
attached to a second magnifying lever which thus records the
variation of temperature.
The curves of daily variation of temperature, and the move-
ment of the petals, show an astonishing resemblance to each other.
There can therefore be no doubt that the cause of the opening
and closing of the flower is the diurnal change of temperature.
The flower is in a position of ' sleep ' during the day ; a rapid
fall of temperature occurs from 6 P.M. and the petals begin to
open at first slowly, then very rapidly. The flower becomes
completely open and fully expanded by 10 P.M. at night. Though
the temperature continues to fall, there is no further possibility of
expansion beyond the maximum. At about 6 A.M. the tempera-
ture begins to rise, and the reverse movement of closure sets in.
The flower continues to close very rapidly till the closure or
' sleep ' movement becomes complete before n A.M.
It is thus seen that the closure of the flower is brought about
by a rise of temperature, the opening being due to a fall of
temperature. Both sides of the petals are in a state of growth,
but the outer side is the more sensitive to changes of temperature.
Thus it happens that during rise of temperature the growth
of the outer side is relatively fast ; during cooling it becomes
relatively slow. The two opposite reactions give rise to two
different curvatures, namely of closure during rise, and of opening
during fall of temperature. Other flowers are known, e.g. the
Tulip, where the inner side is relatively the more sensitive.
Pfeffer has shown that in this flower, rise of temperature brings
about an accelerated growth on the inner side of petal. Hence
the flower opens during rise and closes during fall of temperature.
Thus different flowers through their sensitiveness to heat and
cold execute the so-called movements- of ' sleep ' and of ' waking.'
Some of them have the healthy habit of normal humanity to
sleep at night and keep awake in the day-time. Others turn
night into day and make up for their long night-watch by
sleeping it off in the day-time !
The daily movement of the water-lily is thus shown to
be due to the predominant effect of variation of temperature
on growth. Bose next describes the effect of variation of
light and darkness on organs which are sensitive to light.
198 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
This type is exemplified by the leaflet of Cassia alata. A
rapid movement of closure of leaflets is initiated in this
plant at 5 P.M., when the light is undergoing a rapid
diminution. The movement of closure is completed by
9 P.M., and the leaflets remain closed till 5 A.M. next
morning, after which they begin to open; the opening is
completed by 9 A.M., and the leaflets remain open till the
afternoon. The plant is so extremely sensitive to light that
any slight fluctuation is immediately followed by responsive
movement. Thus the transitory passage of a cloud is
marked in the record by a short-lived closure movement.
Of the vast number of daily movements, perhaps the
largest proportion is due to a characteristic physiological
reaction which had so long remained undiscovered. Bose
spent many years in an attempt to trace the unknown
cause till his perseverance was crowned with success. This
discovery was due to a fortunate incident. When present
by the invitation of the good people of Faridpur to their
celebration of the yearly Mela (mentioned above as
established half a century ago by his father), they told him
of a wondrous ' Praying Palm ' growing in their neighbour-
hood. First then the natural history phenomenon, so far
as generally observed and interpreted :
Perhaps no phenomenon is so remarkable and shrouded with
greater mystery as the performances of a particular Date Palm
near Faridpur in Bengal. In the evening, while the temple bells
ring, calling upon people to prayer, this tree bows down as if to
prostrate itself. It erects its head again in the morning, and
this process is repeated every day of the year. This extra-
ordinary phenomenon has been regarded as miraculous, and
pilgrims have been attracted in large numbers. It is alleged
that offerings made to the tree have been the means of effecting
marvellous cures. It is not necessary to pronounce any opinion
on the subject ; these cures may be taken to be as genuine as
other faith-cures now prevalent in the West.
This particular Date Palm, Phoenix dactylifera, is a full-grown
rigid tree, its trunk being 5 metres in length and 25 cm. in
diameter. It must have been displaced by storm from the
FIG. 24. The 'Praying' Palm. 1 he upper photograph represents the
morning, and the lower photograph the afternoon position.
THE SLEEP OF PLANTS 199
vertical, and is now at an inclination of about 60 degrees to the
vertical. In consequence of the diurnal movement, the trunk
throughout its entire length is erected in the morning, and
depressed in the afternoon. The highest point of the trunk thus
moves up and down through one metre ; the ' neck/ above the
trunk, is concave to the sky in the morning ; in the afternoon the
curvature disappears, or is even slightly reversed. The large
leaves which point high up against the sky in the morning are
thus swung round in the afternoon through a vertical distance of
several metres. To the popular imagination the tree appears
like a living giant, more than twice the height of a human being,
which leans forward in the evening from its towering height and
bends its neck till the crown of leaves presses against the ground
in an apparent attitude of devotion. Two vertical stakes,
each one metre high, give a general idea of the size of
the tree and movements of the different parts of the trunk
(Fig. 24, p. 198).
A difficulty arose at the beginning in obtaining sanction
of the proprietor to attach the recorder to the tree. He
was apprehensive that its miraculous power might disappear
by profane contact with foreign-looking instruments.
His misgivings were removed on the assurance that the
instrument was made in Bose's laboratory in India, and
that it would be attached to the tree by one of his assistants
who was the son of a priest.
The phenomenon above described is not a marvel of
the mystical East : a similar thing had happened among
the prosaic surroundings of Liverpool ! An English friend
sent to Bose the following extract from the Liverpool
Mercury dated December 13, 1811.
Remarkable Phenomenon. There is at present a willow tree
of considerable height and about three yards in circumference,
growing on the banks of a rivulet on a farm called Yubsill, the
property of the Rev. Mr. Wasney, near Shipton, which actually
appears animated : it will, at times, prostrate itself at full length
on the ground, and then rise to its original perpendicular position.
Incredible as this may appear, it is a fact, and has been the
astonishment of hundreds who have seen it ! ! !
200 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. ROSE
Bose's investigation on the ' Praying Palm ' is thus
enunciated :
For obtaining an explanation of the phenomenon it was
necessary :
1. To obtain an accurate record of the movement of the
tree day and night, and to determine the time of its maximum
erection and fall.
2. To find whether this particular instance of movement
was unique, or whether the phenomenon was universal.
3. To discover the cause of the periodic movement of the tree.
4. To determine the relative effects of light and temperature
on the movement.
5. To demonstrate the physiological character of the move-
ment of the tree.
6. To discover the physiological factor whose variation
determines the directive movement.
For the details of this inquiry, the original paper must be
referred to : enough here to summarise the main results-
The curve recording the ' prostration ' of the tree towards
evening, with its nightly rise anew, very closely corresponds
to that of the daily rise and nightly fall of temperature,
though naturally lagging a little behind. This the reader
will see on comparing the curves, which represent the
variation of temperature and the movement of the
palm (Fig. 25). Investigation on a younger and less
bent palm of the same species growing in Bose's garden,
down-stream from Calcutta, 200 miles from Faridpur,
showed an even more exact correspondence of the tree's
movements with the temperature changes, the more since
this smaller tree admitted of the erection of a tent over
it during its observation, so as to prevent wind from
disturbing the record, and also to mitigate any possible
effect of the alternation of sunlight with darkness.
The objection next arises May not this diurnal
rhythm be but a physical effect of temperature, not a
physiological one ? The question, however, was finally
settled by the unfortunate death of the tree, which took
place a year after the commencement of the investigation.
THE SLEEP OF PLANTS
201
Bose was officially informed that ' the palm tree was dead,
and that its movements had ceased.'
Further experiments enabled Bose to show that
movements similar to that of the palm tree occur in all
FIG. 25. Records of the daily movement of the Palm Tree, of
Tropaeolum, and of the Palm Leaf. The upper record
gives the daily variation of temperature.
trees and their branches and leaves. 1 He was further
able to trace the cause of the movement to the joint effects
of geotropism and temperature ; he designates the new
phenomenon as therm o-geotropism. Under the action of
the stimulus of gravity stems, branches and leaves tend
to erect themselves against the force of gravity, and a
1 Trans. Bose Inst., vol. i., 1918.
202 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
curvature is thus produced. Rise of temperature reduces
the geotropic effect and flattens this curvature, while fall
of temperature accentuates it. Hence under the daily
variation of temperature, all branches of trees and their
leaves exhibit a periodic up and down movement. This
is clearly seen in the records given in Fig. 25 of the diurnal
movement of the palm tree, that of the procumbent stem
of Tropaeolum, and of the leaf of the palm. In the tropics
the thermal noon or the period of highest temperature
is about 3 P.M., while the thermal dawn or temperature
minimum is about 6 A.M. The different plant-organs
are seen to move continually upwards from the thermal
noon to the thermal dawn. The reverse movement takes
place after 6 A.M., and the maximum fall is attained at
the thermal noon at 3 P.M. Several hundreds of records
obtained with different plants show that their daily
movements hitherto unexplained are brought about by
therm o-geotropic action.
An animal experiences a daily cycle of change passing
through the stages of what we know as sleeping and waking.
The fanciful name of sleep has been given to the closure
of the leaflets of certain plants at night. Bose has shown
how these opening and closure movements are brought
about, these being in no way related to true sleep. The
question as to whether plants sleep or not can be put in
the form of a definite inquiry : Is the plant equally
excitable throughout the day and night ? If not, is there
any period at which it practically loses its sensibility ?
Is there again another period at which it wakes up, as it
were, to a condition of maximum excitability ?
This problem was solved by Bose by means of a
specially invented apparatus which delivers a questioning .
shock to the Mimosa plant every hour of the day and
night, and records automatically the answering response
of the plant. The size of the answering twitch gives a
measure of the ' wakefulness ' of the plant during twenty-
THE SLEEP OF PLANTS 203
four hours. In this way it was found (Fig. 26) that the
plant is a late riser, waking up very gradually and very
slowly ; it becomes fully alert by noon, remaining so until
evening. It is, however, quite awake until midnight. It
then begins to grow somewhat lethargic, but does not lose
its sensibility until the early hours of the morning, when its
excitability disappears, and the plant ceases to give any
answer.
FIG. 26. Diurnal record showing variation of sensibility of Mimosa from
5 P.M. to 5 P.M. next day.
The anomalies and intricacies of plant-movements,
though so baffling, served only, as we have seen, to spur
Bose to renewed efforts. As regards the possibility of
unravelling the complexity, he spoke with confidence :
The extent of our range of investigation is limited ultimately
by our power of detecting movement and measuring the rate
of movement, that is to say in measurements of length and time.
I have shown elsewhere how the employment of my Resonant
Recorder enables us to measure time within a thousandth part
of a second. We are, on the other hand, able by means of
the Crescographic amplification to obtain records of movements
magnified a million times. These possibilities and increasing
refinement in our experimental methods cannot but lead to
important advances towards a deeper understanding of the
physiological reactions in living organisms.
204 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
His confidence has been fully justified. The varied
phenomena of life-movements in plants, apparently so
capricious, had hitherto been regarded as incapable of
any rational generalisation. Bose, however, has succeeded
in showing that all these diverse movements the complex
variations of growth, the twining of tendrils, the curvature
towards or away from light, and even the diametrically
opposite movements of root and shoot under the identical
stimulus of gravity result from two fundamental reactions :
that of Direct Stimulus inducing contraction, and Indirect
Stimulus, expansion. Few contributions to vegetable
physiology can be of wider application and significance
than this great generalisation, which in the phenomenon of
life will rank as high as the universal theory of gravitation
in the world of matter.
CHAPTER XVI
PSYCHO-PHYSICS
Boss, as we have seen, had gone to England in 1900 in
hopes of making over his researches on the borderland of
physics and physiology to the physiologists ; and he
expected to return to continue his physical work, with its
many opening perspectives. But the opposition of the
physiologists challenged him to his new course of investi-
gations. His physical turn of thinking had always repelled
him from metaphysical speculation ; and he had not
taken much, if any, interest in' experimental psychology.
But unexpected results in his investigations made him
realise that there were important analogies even in the
field of psycho-physics, and these parallels increasingly
compelled attention, though for a long time with some
reluctance.
Bose's attention was first attracted to the responsive
peculiarities of various forms of ' artificial retina ' which
he had constructed. He found that the stimulus of light
has not only an immediate effect but also an after-effect ;
and that the after-effect of a strong stimulus persists for
a longer time than that of a feeble one. He describes very
interesting visual analogues where he was actually able to
see better when the eyes were shut. He had been observing
an experiment of Sir William Roberts-Austen on the
quick fusion of metals, where owing to the glare and dense
fumes it was impossible to see what happened in the
206 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
crucible ; but on quickly closing the eyes the visual after-
effect of the smoke, being of less luminescence, cleared
away first, leaving the after-image of the molten and boiling
metal growing clearer on the retina.
Under continuous action of light the artificial retina
exhibited periodic fluctuations in response. In trying
to determine the corresponding phenomenon in human
vision, he discovered ' the curious fact that in normal eyes
the two do not see equally well at a given instant, but the
visual effect in each eye undergoes fluctuation from moment
to moment, in such a way that the sensation in the one
is complementary to that in the other, the sum of the two
sensations remaining approximately constant. Thus they
take up the work of seeing, and then, relatively speaking,
resting, alternately.' This division of labour, in binocular
vision, must be of obvious advantage.
For demonstration he uses a stereoscope carrying,
instead of stereo-photographs, an incised plate, through
which we look at the light. The design consists of two
slanting cuts, one eye looking at one and the second at
the other. In this way not only is the different binocular
alternation of vision demonstrated, but also the after-
effects. When the design is looked at through the stereo-
scope, the right eye will see the right slanting cut R, and
the left the other incised cut L ; the two images will appear
superimposed, and we see an inclined cross. When the
stereoscope is turned towards the sky, and the cross looked
at steadily for some time, it will be found, owing to the
alternation already referred to, that while one arm of
the cross begins to be dim, the other becomes bright, and
vice versa. The alternate fluctuations become far more
conspicuous when the eyes are closed ; the pure oscillatory
after-effects are then obtained in a most vivid manner.
After looking through the stereoscope for ten seconds or
more, the eyes are closed. The first effect observed is
one of darkness, due to the rebound. Then one luminous
arm of the cross first projects aslant the dark field, and
PSYCHO-PHYSICS 207
then slowly disappears, after which the second (perceived by
the other eye) shoots out suddenly in a direction athwart
the first. This alternation proceeds for a long time, and
produces the curious effect of two luminous blades crossing
and recrossing each other. These alternating after-images
persist for a very long period. The recurrent after-image
is very distinct at the beginning, and becomes fainter at
each repetition ; a time comes when it is difficult to tell
whether the image seen is the objective after-effect due
to strain caused by stimulus or merely an after-effect of
memory. In fact there is no line of demarcation between
the two. One simply merges into the other.
The visual impressions and their recurrence often persist for
a very long time. It usually happens that owing to weariness
the recurrent images disappear ; but in some instances, long
after this apparent disappearance, they will spontaneously
reappear at the most unexpected moments. In one instance
the recurrence was observed in a dream about three weeks
after the impression was made. It thus appears that in addition
to the images impressed on the retina of which we are conscious,
there are many others which are imprinted without our
knowledge. We fail to notice them because our attention
is directed to something else. But at a subsequent period,
when the mind is in a passive state, these impressions may
suddenly revive owing to the phenomenon of recurrence. This
observation may afford an explanation of some of the pheno-
mena connected with ocular phantoms and hallucinations.'
He then investigates certain other phenomena connected
with ' Memory/
Of that mental revival of past experience -which we call
memory, we may notice two different types. One is the spon-
taneous and recurrent revival of some strong impression from
which we cannot escape : in the second case the primary im-
pression has faded away, and it is only after an effort that we
succeed in reviving the latent image. As regards spontaneous or
recurrent revival of impression, I have shown elsewhere that in
living tissues a very intense stimulus gives rise not to a single, but
to multiple or repeated responses. Since an intense excitation is
208 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGAD1S C. ROSE
liable to recur spontaneously, without the action of the will or
even in spite of it, it follows that any single impression, when
very intense, may become dominant and persist in automatic
recurrence. Instances of this are only too familiar.
A more interesting form of memory is the revival of an
impression, the after-effect of which has faded out. Here
we find that when no tangible effect of the impression remains,
it may still be recalled by an effort or impulse of the will. It
is clear that such a revival of impression can only take place
by bringing about the original condition of excitation ; in other
words repeating the effect of original stimulus in its complete
absence.
As a concrete example we may take the visual impression
of a bright cross against a dark background. Under primary
stimulus, it is clear that we have in the sensory field two areas
under differential excitation. The one the excited area
in the form of a cross ; the other outside this, remaining
unexcited. The image of the cross is therefore due to the
differential excitation of a definite region in the sensory field.
It is therefore obvious that in order to revive the picture we have
to reproduce, in the absence of the primary stimulus, the same
state of differential excitation as was originally induced.
Bose next shows that by the shock of stimulus, the
surface acted on undergoes a molecular distortion from
which there is slow recovery ; but the recovery is never
quite complete. Traces are left of the impression made
by the stimulus. These, though invisible, remain latent,
and beyond ordinary means of detection. Under certain
conditions, however, this invisible script could once more
be rendered conspicuous. Bose was able to form impressions
on metallic surfaces, of which no sign whatever was visible
even under the microscope. But when the plate was
subjected to a diffused shock, these latent images were
found revived. Similarly all the impressions made on
the sensory surface by the localised action of stimulus
remain dormant as a latent memory-image. The localised
effect of this primary stimulus is to render the affected
part of the tissue more excitable or a better conductor
of excitation. Under the action of any form of diffuse
PSYCHO-PHYSICS 209
stimulation these potentially more excitable areas become
more intensely stimulated than their less active background,
thus reproducing the original picture. Ordinarily such
memory-revival takes place under the diffuse stimulus
of the effort of the will. Here then is a wide range of
inquiry, its subjects ranging from metal to plants, and
lastly to man himself. And Bose concludes that ' in
this demonstration of continuity, it has been found that
the dividing frontiers between physics, physiology, and
psychology have disappeared.'
This of course means the older conventional frontiers,
and does not deny to each view-point such reasonable
distinctness as may be. And while the physicists were
sympathetic to these inquiries from the first, and the
physiologists, though slower to convince, have come from
these volumes and their successors essentially to accept
them, it would seem that the psychologists are as yet
insufficiently in touch with the results. Yet there are
notable exceptions, President Stanley Hall of Clark
University, for example, having been so interested as to
have introduced the books into his syllabus for workers
in psychology.
Bergson's and others' interpretations of ' Memory '
need to take note of this differing one ; and Bergson and
Bose alike have also to discuss interpretations like those
of Semon's. The psychologist, the physiologist, and the
physicist have here peculiarly to collaborate in a most
important field of investigation ; while, as has once and
again been pointed out, the mystery of Heredity is also
correlated ; for is not this the organic race-memory ?
As psychological reaction must be related to under-
lying physiological change, Bose next - investigated the
effect of increasing stimulus from the sub-minimal to
maximal. From his results there arises a fresh consideration
of that famous ' Weber- Fechner's Law ' which to so many
has long seemed the very foundation of psycho-physiological
210 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
inquiry, though to others less satisfactory. According
to this, the strength of stimulus must be increased
in geometrical ratio, in order that the intensity ol
psycho-physiological reaction may increase arithmetically.
According to Weber's Law the relation between stimulus
and response is quantitative ; it does not take into account
that the quality or sign of response is also liable to change.
But Bose's experiments have here yielded significant results.
Their many records of living tissues bring out the striking
fact that the sign of response is modified by the strength
of stimulus. Hence the relation between stimulus and
response is by no means so simple as Weber, Fechner, and
their successors have assumed ; for tracings obtained with
Bose's finer recording instruments show that what seemed
formerly a subminimal stimulus may really produce
appreciable effects. Moreover, a very feeble stimulus gives
a distinct response of positive sign, i.e. expansion the
very opposite to the contractile response under usual
stimulation. The continuance or even moderate increase
of the feeble stimulus shows a diminishing result, going back
to a point of no apparent response at all. Yet this is not
a true zero, but a balance of opposite responses ; for with
a continued increase of stimulus the opposite and usual
response begins, and increases to its maximum, as Weber
observes. The fresh observation just noted introduces an
element of qualitative transformation previously unsus-
pected, and in fact overlooked.
By employing very delicate methods of mechanical
and electrical response, Bose discovered two distinct
impulses of opposite signs which occur in the conducting
nerve according to whether the stimulation be feeble or
intense. A feeble stimulus applied at some distance
from the responding pulvinus of Mimosa (which acts like
contractile muscle) gives rise to an impulse which causes
a positive or expansive reaction, by which the leaf becomes
erected. A strong stimulus, on the other hand, gives rise
to an impulse which induces precisely the opposite reaction
PSYCHO-PHYSICS 211
namely, that of contraction and fall of the leaf. The effects
of feeble and strong stimulus are therefore not merely
quantitatively different but qualitatively, being of different
signs, positive and negative. He obtained identical results
from his electric mode of investigation, feeble stimulus
causing a positive and strong stimulus a negative electric
change.
Moderately feeble stimulation brings about an increase
of energy ; excessive stimulation, on the other hand, causes
a run-down of energy ; and between these extreme cases is
a long range of variation in which either may predominate.
But anything which raises the tonic condition is for the
well-being and health of the organism, and is associated
with positivity ; and so of course conversely. Of the two
tones of sensation the positive is associated with what may
be regarded as pleasant or not-painful, and the negative
with the unpleasant or the painful. Various experiments
lent support to this conclusion, at least in typical cases,
and with ' grounds of reconciliation to those who hold on
the one hand that the motor reaction is secondary to the
mental, and on the other that sensation is merely an accom-
paniment of movements reflexly induced/ in fact between
the common view and the Lange- James theory.
That the different sensation-tones have their physical
concomitants of opposite characters is also supported
by Miinsterberg, who holds that ' the feeling of agree-
ableness is the mental accompaniment and the outcome
of reflexly-produced movements of extension, and disagree-
ableness of the movement of flexion/ An ordinary observer
is familiar with the expanded and rounded outline of the
kitten purring with delight under gentle caresses, and the
sudden change of its attitude and aspect in contraction and
flexion, with the accompanying jump, under a pinch or a
blow.
Bose next employed his very delicate method of experi-
mentation to determine the characteristics of the nervous
212 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
impulse, which is the basis of sensation. He begins with
the simplest type of nervous tissue in plants like Mimosa.
He uses his Resonant Recorder for determination of speed
of nervous impulse and its variation the Automatic
Recorder enabling him to measure accurately to the
thousandth part of a second. He shows that there is no
physiological characteristic of the animal nerve which is
not also to be found in the plant nerve. The various
physiological ' blocks ' which arrest the nervous impulse in
the animal are shown to arrest the corresponding impulse
in the "plant. Agents which accelerate the nervous impulse
in the animal are shown to exalt the impulse in the plant.
Thus within the normal range, a rise of temperature of
about 9 C. doubles the speed in animal nerve ; this is also
found to be the case in the plant.
He next determines the latent period or the perception-
time of contractile tissue in Mimosa. This latent period
in Mimosa, as previously stated, is 0-076 sec., or one-eighth
the value in an energetic frog. We are of course prepared
for slower reaction in plants, the difference between the
plant and animal being one of degree and not of kind. Our
perception-time is slowed down under fatigue ; exactly
parallel is the effect on plants.
Bose's further investigations give again very significant
results as regards the power of stimulus to fashion its
own conducting path. Thus a plant carefully protected
under glass from the stimulating buffets of the elements
looks sleek and flourishing, yet in 'reality it is flabby. Its
conducting power is found to be in abeyance. But when a
succession of blows rain on this effete and bloated specimen,
the shocks themselves create nervous channels and arouse
anew its deteriorated nature. ' And is it not shocks of
adversity, and not cotton-wool protection, that evolve
true manhood ? Thus we see how organism is modified by
its environment, and how an organ is, as it were, created
by the cumulative effect of stimulus/ These discoveries
PSYCHO-PHYSICS 213
show that the nervous impulse in plants has the same
characteristics as that of animals ; they also demon-
strate how the inquiry into the simpler life helps towards
the understanding of the more complex.
Since the tone of sensation is dependent on the intensity
of transmitted excitation, Bose next asks himself whether
it be possible to control the intensity of nervous impulse
at will. He now enters into a new field of inquiry perhaps
his most daring. In regard to sensation two extreme
cases may be considered : in the first the external stimulus
is too feeble for the resulting impulse to cause perception ;
here we would desire to exalt the conducting power of
the message-bearmg vehicle, the nerve, so that what was
subliminal shall become perceptible. Excessively strong
external stimulus, on the other hand, on account of its
character or intensity causes sensation which is intolerably
painful. Could such a message be altogether blocked by
arresting the nervous impulse during transit ? The problem
is thus stated by Bose :
There is an apparent resemblance between the conduction
of electric impulse by metallic conductor, and the excitatory
nervous impulse by a nerve-conductor. In metal the power
of conduction is constant, and the electric impulse will depend
on the intensity of electric force that is applied. If the con-
ducting power of the nerve were constant, then the intensity
of the nervous impulse and its resulting sensation will depend
inevitably on the intensity of shock which starts the impulse.
In that case modification of our sensation would be an im-
possibility. But there may be a likelihood that the power of
conduction possessed by a nerve is not constant, but capable
of change. Should this surmise prove to be correct, then we
arrive at the momentous conclusion that sensation itself is
modifiable, whatever be the external stimulus, For the modifi-
cation of nervous impulse there remains only one alternative,
namely, some power to render the vehicle a very much better con-
ductor or a non-conductor according to particular requirements.
We require the nervous path to become supra-conducting in
order that the impulse due to sub-minimal stimulus might be
214 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
brought to sensory prominence. When the external blow, on
the other hand, is too violent we would block the pain-
causing impulse by rendering the nerve a non-conductor.
Under narcotic the nerve becomes paralysed, and we can
thus by its use save ourselves from pain. But such heroic
measures are to be resorted to only in extreme cases, as when we
are under the surgeon's knife. In actual life we are confronted
with unpleasantness without notice. A telephone subscriber
has the evident advantage, for he can switch off the connection
when the message begins to be unpleasant. But it is not every-
one that has the courage of Mr. Herbert Spencer, who openly
resorted to his ear-plugs when his visitor became tedious.
Bose then proceeds to consider the characteristics
of nervous impulse. Stimulus causes a molecular upset in
the excitable living tissue, and the propagation of nervous
impulse is a phenomenon of the transmission of molecular
disturbance from point to point. This molecular upset
and propagation of disturbance may be pictured simply
by means of a row of standing books. A certain intensity
of blow applied, say, to the book on the extreme right would
cause it to fall to the left, hitting its neighbour, and
making the other books topple over in rapid succession.
If the books have previously been tilted towards the left, a
disposition would have been given to them which would
bring about an upset under a feebler blow and accelerate
the speed of transmission of disturbance. A tilt in the
opposite direction would, on the other hand, be a pre-
disposition to retard or inhibit this. Thus, by means of a
directive force, we may induce a predisposition in the
system which would enhance or retard the transmitted
impulse. In a similar manner Bose imagined that opposite
reactions of a polar character might be discovered by
which molecular dispositions of opposite character could
be induced in a nerve so as to enhance or to retard the
conduction of nervous impulse.
The possibility of such a control of nervous impulse
at will must be tested by experiment. Can opposite
molecular dispositions be induced in the nerve, in conse-
PSYCHO-PHYSICS 215
quence of which its conducting power would be appropriately
enhanced or inhibited ?
Bose was able to realise his theoretical anticipations
in a striking manner, by application of electric force
of a polar character. By conferring on the plant nerve
a favourable molecular disposition, a feeble stimulus,
previously below the threshold of perception, now produced
an extraordinarily large response. Conversely, an intense
excitation was arrested during transit by inducing opposite
molecular disposition on the nervous tissue. A climax was
reached when Bose was able by similar methods to confer
on the same nerve of an animal a supra-conducting or
non-conducting property at will. Thus, under a particular
molecular disposition of the nerve, the experimental frog
responded to stimulus which had hitherto been below
its threshold of perception. Under the opposite disposition
the violent spasm under salt- tetanus was at once quelled.
On the cessation of the directive force the nerve immediately
regained its normal property.
Bose was thus able to demonstrate experimentally the
possibility of conferring two opposite * molecular disposi-
tions ' to the nerve by which the nervous impulse could be
accentuated or inhibited. And we are now able to obtain
a true insight of various phenomena within our experience
the effect of attention, for example, in increasing the power
of perception. The influence of suggestion, moreover, now
becomes understood. The most important to us is the
power of auto-suggestion or the power of Will. Who can
define this power of Will intensified by practice and con-
centration ? In the concluding portion of a recent address
there occurs the following passage on the potentiality
that is in man to rise victorious over circumstances :
In the determination of sensation, then, the internal stimulus
of Will may play as important a part as the shock from outside.
And thus through the inner control of the molecular disposition
of the nerve, the character of the resulting sensation may
become profoundly modified. The external then is not so
216 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. ROSE
overwhelmingly dominant, and man is no longer passive in
the hands of destiny. There is a latent power which would
raise him above the terrors of his inimical surroundings. It
remains with him that the channels through which the outside
world reaches him should at his command be widened or become
closed. It would thus be possible for him to catch those in-
distinct messages that have hitherto passed by him unperceived ;
or he may withdraw within himself, so that in his inner realm,
the jarring notes and the din of the world should no longer
affect him.
CHAPTER XVII
FRIENDSHIPS AND PERSONALITY
THOUGH parents, kindred, and home surroundings cannot
but count for much in every life, Eastern and Western,
it is an old and standard observation of comparative
psychology that these influences are even deeper and
more enduring in the communal family systems of
the Orient than in the smaller and more individualistic
family systems of the West, with their greater dis-
persiveness. Hence, though every happily educated and
productive life must rightly and gratefully recognise its
early and formative influences, these tend in the East to
be more frequently and clearly remembered, indeed more
enduringly in evidence. Thus Bose's father's character
and example, so full of varied activities and bold initiatives,
has been a great impulse and continual inspiration through-
out his son's life ; while only second to this has been the
deep affection of his mother, strongly returned, while her
settlement of her son's studies in England, in spite of the
decision of the family council on them, seems to have been
the emphatic incident of her gentle, purposive guidance.
Both parents, too, lived with the Boses after their retirement,
' and to the last the father dying at sixty-two, when Bose
was thirty-two, and the mother at about the same age two
years later.
Bose's eldest sister, later Mrs. A. M. Bose, was his
constant friend and companion in childhood, and that her
influence too must have been helpful is evidenced not
217
218 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
only from her own literary power in later life, but by her
keen observation of nature. At her country house, Fairy
Hall, at Dumdum, outside Calcutta, she drew her brother's
attention to the peculiar movements of leaflets of Biophytum,
which led to his discovery of multiple response, and its
continuity with the automatic response of the Telegraph-
plant.
Her husband, Ananda Mohun Bose, also affected his life
deeply. A. M. Bose was one of the earliest batch of students
from India to Cambridge in 1870, and was the first Indian
Wrangler. His oratorical power was of the highest order.
Professor Fawcett asked him to address his constituents,
and declared that he could not have produced such an
influence as had his young Indian friend. After his return
to India he became one of the leaders of his countrymen,
alike by his ability and by his saintly character. He was one
of the founders of the Indian Association, and was President
of the National Congress at Madras in 1902. He was a
member of the Educational Commission, and founded in
Calcutta the City College which has since been one of the
most important in the University. He was also one of
the founders of an Institution for the Higher Education of
Indian Women. Bose's younger sisters have also, each
in her own way, followed lives of intellectual activity;
and one has trained a son to follow the footsteps of his
uncle, as already an active investigator of radio-activity.
Most important, however, of all these influences from
youth onwards has of course been that of his life companion
of now some thirty-three years. She had an education in
science, having been a medical student for four years.
Fortunately too for her, in view of long-continued scanty
means and strenuous saving to pay off family debts,
she had been trained to skilled and thrifty house-keep-
ing : yet here has been no simple housewife's life, but
one full of active culture-interests also, not only appre-
ciating her husband's many scientific problems and tasks,
and hospitality to his students and friends, but sharing all
FRIENDSHIPS AND PERSONALITY 219
his cares and difficulties, and so lightening them not a little.
For his impassioned temperament in younger days doubt-
less fiery, and still excitable enough her strong serenity and
persistently cheerful courage have been an invaluable and
ever active support, like the fly-wheel steadily maintaining
and regulating the throbbing energies of the steam-engine.
Pilgrimages in India and visits to Europe and America have
been made always together, and their one great common
sorrow the loss of their only babe in early infancy has
made them more completely at one. Alike for physical
health, on the whole well maintained, yet once and again
nursed back from danger, and for steadiness of intellectual
output, for consolation in times of trial, difficulty and
depression, as well as cheerful acceptance and constant
lightening of long years of poverty and self-denial which
cannot but press more closely upon a wife than on a husband
Bose has indeed been rarely fortunate in such a helpmeet ;
and no friend or biographer could fail to recognise the
greatness of her share in his life's productivity and success.
The advantages of celibacy to the intellectual life have
so long been urged and acted on in East and West alike
that it is as well that those whose experience and career
have had the yet higher advantages of wedlock at its best
should also bear their testimony. And that even such
devoted companionship may be fully compatible for the
wife as well as for the husband with cultural usefulness and
influence beyond the home is demonstrated by a life like
that of Lady Bose, whose leadership in administration of
the highly efficient Girls' High School opposite her Calcutta
home is the fit pendant to her husband's activities in his
Institute beside it.
Before we pass to his other enduring friendships, we
must understand his outlook on life and immediate duties.
His early childhood was, as we have seen, deeply impressed
by the traditions of the heroic epoch of ancient India,
and he had the unshaken belief ' that the past shall yet be
reborn in a nobler future through the efforts of their lives/
f
220 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSF
He had no patience with the easy talk about inter-
nationalism or about the virtues of renunciation. For
about the former they had no right to talk of inter-
nationalism until their own country had won recognition as a
nation ; and of the latter he thought ' the weakling who has
refused the conflict has acquired nothing, and has nothing
to renounce ; only he who has striven and won can enrich
the world by giving away the fruits of his victorious
experience.' He felt that the strong must bear the
burden and deliberately choose the difficult in preference
to the easy path ; to him this was the true function of
nationality. With this conviction there mingled another
no less imperative. His studies had revealed to him the
workings of a strange Cyclic Law how inertness passed
into climax of activity and how that climax was perilously
near its antithetic decline. When we have raised ourselves
to the highest pinnacle, through some oversight we fall
over the precipice. Men have offered their lives for the
establishment of truth ; a climax is reached after which
the custodians of knowledge themselves bar further
advance. Those who have fought for liberty impose on
others and on themselves the bond of slavery, and patriotism
often degenerates into the worst form of tyranny. He
resolved that his love for India should never stand in the
way of his wider love for humanity ; and two great friend-
ships came to him at this phase of life which laid his
misgiving to rest, and enabled him to realise fully the unity
of all human efforts.
In 1899 Mrs. Ole Bull and Miss Margaret Noble (Sister
Nivedita), having heard much of Bose's discoveries, came
to see him in his Calcutta laboratory and to learn what
they could. The mutual interest awakened that day
ripened into a deep friendship only interrupted by death.
Mrs. Ole Bull, an American, was the widow of the great
Norse violinist who inspired a generation of writers and
musicians Ibsen, Bjornson, Grieg and others to win
European eminence for their country as well as for them-
FRIENDSHIPS AND PERSONALITY 221
selves. The acquaintance ripened quickly during her short
stay in Calcutta in 1899, and Mrs. Bull urged on the Boses
to visit her some day in America. After Bose's attendance
at the International Science Congress at Paris in 1900 and
subsequent cares, his health broke down, and he was in
imminent danger, when Mrs. Bull, hearing of this, came
over from the Continent, found him an expert surgeon,
and helped to nurse him back to health. From this time
a deep friendship grew up, and Bose found in her anew
the great qualities of his own mother. When the Boses
went to America in 1907 her home was theirs, and head-
quarters for his visits to different Universities. They
also came to know Mrs. Bull's brother, Mr. J. G. Thorp,
a very influential and honoured citizen of Boston, and his
wife, the poet Longfellow's daughter ; and on a second
visit in 1914, after Mrs. Ole Bull's death, Mr. Thorp's house
was their home and centre for making new contacts with
leading minds of Boston and Harvard.
Latest among these friendships, but in some ways of
the very highest importance, came that with Margaret
Noble better known as Sister Nivedita after her dedication
to the Order of Ramakrishna, which the great person-
ality and teaching of Swami Vivekananda had launched
upon its career of varied usefulness, educational and social.
Nivedita's interests were too large and varied and eager
to be confined within any single round of duties or system
of doctrine ; and she keenly realised the importance of
Bose's work at once for science in general and for the fuller
arousal of scientific activities in India in particular. After
his serious illness, and while convalescing, Bose found a
home with Nivedita's mother at Wimbledon ; and later
Mrs. Bose during an illness found the same hospitality,
so that the two families were intimately and permanently
drawn together even for the young and rising generation.
Nivedita's combination of intellectual and personal
idealism was fully aroused by Bose's discoveries and his
difficulties in those days in convincing others of them.
222 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
Her fervid faith in the long-dreamed-of Research Institute,
its possibilities for science and its promise for India, was
no small impulse and encouragement towards its realisation ;
and thus is explained the memorial fountain with its
bas-relief of ' Woman carrying Light to the Temple ' which
adorns the entrance of his Institute.
Nivedita did not live to see the foundation of the
Institute, for her over-strenuous efforts on behalf of those
amongst whom she dwelt caused her untimely death in 1911.
In the memorial volume which he prepared, Mr. S. K.
Ratcliffe wrote of Nivedita : ' Those to whom she gave
the ennobling gift of her friendship hold the memory of that
gift as this world's highest benediction.' Lady Bcse, who
felt deeply the loss of her friend, wrote : ' As a woman, I knew
her in everyday life, full of austerity and possessed with a
longing for righteousness which shone round her like a pure
flame. Others will know her as the great moral and
intellectual force which came to us in time of great national
need/
Turning now to Bose's friendships among men, foremost
and greatest (appropriately first also for their present order
of treatment) has been that with the poet Rabindranath
Tagore. On the occasion of Bose's return from his success-
ful visit to Europe in 1896, Tagore called to congratulate
him and, not finding him at home, left on his work-table
a great blossom of magnolia, as a fitting and characteristic
message of regard. Since that time the two have been
increasingly together, each complementing and thereby
widening and deepening the other's characteristic outlook
on nature and life, and stimulating to his expression
accordingly. Once, on receiving an invitation from the poet
to stay with him at his house at Silaida on the river Padma,
Bose accepted it with the demand of the fullest and highest
hospitality his friend could render him that of a new story
to be written every day, and read to him every evening !
It was in this fashion that one of the most beautiful series
of Tagore's short stories came to be written.
FRIENDSHIPS AND PERSONALITY 223
Tagore, though occupying the foremost literary position
in India, was not at that time known in Europe, and Bose
felt keenly that the West had not the opportunity of
realising his friend's greatness. So during his second
visit to England, in 1900, he had one of his stories, ' The
Kabuliwalla/ translated into English. Prince Kropotkin
a good critic in letters as well as science declared it to
be the most pathetic story he had ever heard, reminding
him of the greatest writers among his countrymen ; and
Bose submitted it to Harper's Magazine. It was declined,
because the West was not sufficiently interested in Oriental
life ! The time had not yet come : but Bose during his last
visit to America in 1915, when Tagore's fame was reaching
its meridian, did not fail to utilise the opportunity to
rub this in when Harper was publishing one of his own
articles.
Though Bengali literature has as yet culminated in
Tagore, he had had predecessors ; he has contemporaries
and promising writers among the young generation. With
these active groups of men of letters, Bose has had most
cordial relations ; and one of his activities has been in
connection with the Parishad, the Academy of Bengali
Literature, of which he was the President for several years.
There is another important institution, the Ram Mohan
Library, of which he is the President ; this Institution
organises regular lectures for popular diffusion of knowledge.
With the now increasingly successful and appreciated group
of painters Gaganendra Nath and Abanindra Nath Tagore
and their pupils who are carrying their part in the con-
temporary Bengali renaissance, and making Calcutta more
and more correspond in such activities to one of the greater
culture-cities of the West, Bose has long been in closest
sympathy. His Calcutta drawing-room contains a striking
frieze from the ' Mahabharata ' by Nanda Lai Bose, and
now the adjacent lecture-hall of the Institute has a large
symbolic painting, ' The Quest/ by the same hand.
Among scientific friends may be specially mentioned
224 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
Sir P. C. Ray, the chemist. On his return from his
Edinburgh studies he found welcome and a home at Bose's.
The spirit of departmental trade unionism which stood
in the way of Indians securing responsible positions in
education was, as usual, fully active. But Bose who can
be tactful for his friends, as well as combative in defence
of principles managed to disarm the reluctance of the
Education Department to appoint another Indian in the
Science professoriate of the Presidency College, and with long
colleagueship a very close friendship has grown up between
them. Bose's active championship of Ray's promise and
powers has long been amply justified by the high appreciation
of brother chemists and the success of his pupils.
Bose has also been on terms of closest friendship with
the leaders of educational, social, and political movements.
Among these may be mentioned the late G. K. Gokhale
and Mr. M. K. Gandhi. Special mention must be made
here of his medical adviser and friend, Sir Nilratan Sircar,
the leading physician of Calcutta, who in addition to his
professional work has rendered such services in the cause
of higher education as to make the Indian Government
select him for the Vice-Chancellorship of the Calcutta
University. Fairly near neighbours in Calcutta, he and
Bose are next door in Darjeeling, and to Sir Nilratan's
promptitude and skill Bose has on more than one occasion
already owed his life, while his fairly continued health
depends much on his old friend's vigilance.
Reference may here be made to his numerous students,
of whom he thus spoke in one of his addresses : ' Perhaps
as a reward for years of effort, I find all over India those
who have been my pupils occupying positions of the highest
trust and responsibility in different walks of life. I do
not merely count those who have won fame and success,
but I also claim many others who have taken up the burden
of life manfully and whose life of purity and unselfishness
has brought gleams of joy into suffering lives.'
Of friends both in Europe and in America much might
FRIENDSHIPS AND PERSONALITY 225
be said, for they have been many ; and it must be a matter
of satisfaction that even out of his past fights he has won
some of his staunchest friends.
In recognition of the unique services rendered to the
cause of science, the Imperial Government has conferred
on him honours on successive occasions. This recognition
for the first time by the State of the importance of Indian
contributions for the advancement of world's science was
received with satisfaction by his countrymen. With
Bose's fully developed Indian personality, yet with the best
of world culture fully incorporated in his own, and high
humanistic views, one can wish for no better link between
East and West, of interchange and ever increasing under-
standing.
Bose was to have retired in 1913, on the completion of
his fifty-fifth year ; but the Bengal Government, in recog-
nition of his services to the Presidency College and of his
great influence over students, extended his period of service
for two years, so that he retired in November 1915. As
a further acknowledgment the Government gazetted him
as Professor Emeritus, on full pay instead of pension
a distinction so far unique in the Education Service of
India. Thus was secured his permanent connection with
the Presidency College, whose renown he had so largely
enhanced. Further than this, he received a knighthood
and the Companionship of the Star of India.
Most men, under such gratifying conditions, would
accept their honours and emoluments as their due reward
for strenuous effort and would feel justified in seeking the
ease of retirement ; but such was not Bose's attitude, for
his goal was not yet reached.
One need only recall how his life-long efforts for the
establishment of a laboratory for research had so often
seemed on the point of realisation only to be thwarted
each time, to appreciate the irony of the fact that when
eventually the properly equipped physical laboratory of his
226 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
college was built, it was only on the eve of his retirement,
and hence too late for the continuation of his researches.
All these disappointments only made Bose more resolved to
carry out his own project ; so that he worked with tireless
energy, during the two years subsequent to his retirement,
at the final planning, building and organisation of the
Research Institute. His own researches were not, however,
interrupted, for he continued to carry them out at his
summer home at Darjiling and at Sijberia on the Ganges,
some twenty miles down stream from Calcutta, with its
pleasant little bungalow and tree-bordered grounds quietly
and picturesquely situated at the junction of a minor
stream with the great river. But such centres of personal
activity made all the more imperative the creation of the
long-dreamed- of Research Institute.
This he at length opened, on his fifty-ninth birthday,
November 30, 1917, in commemoration and repetition of
his vow to research twenty-three years before. Though
his oft-repeated journeys to England and other countries
of the West had made Bose a citizen of the world in an
unusual degree, yet his fundamental attitude to life and
knowledge was primarily Indian, with its ideality which
embraced the service of humanity. His object and outlook
will be best understood from the inaugural address, repro-
duced in the next chapter.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE DEDICATION x
I DEDICATE to-day this Institute not merely a Laboratory
but a Temple.
The power of physical methods applies to the estab-
lishment of that truth which can be realised directly
through our senses, or through the vast expansion of the
perceptive range by means of artificially created organs.
We still gather the tremulous message when the note of
the audible reaches the unheard. When human sight fails,
we continue to explore the region of the invisible. The
little that we can see is as nothing compared to the vastness
of that which we cannot. Out of the very imperfection of
his senses man has built himself a raft pf thought by which
he makes daring adventures on the great seas of the Un-
known. But there are other truths which will remain beyond
even the super-sensitive methods known to science. For
these we require faith, tested not in a few years but by an
entire life. And a temple is erected as a fit memorial for
the establishment of that truth for which faith was needed.
The personal, yet general, truth and faith whose establish-
ment this Institute commemorates is this : that when one
has gained the vision of a purpose to which he can and
must dedicate himself fully, then the closed doors will
be opened and the seemingly impossible become fully
attainable.
1 Sir J. C. Bose's inaugural address in dedication of the Bose Institute,
November 30, 1917. ,
227
228 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
Thirty-two years ago I chose the teaching of science as
my vocation. It was held that by its very peculiar con-
stitution, the Indian mind would always turn away from the
study of Nature to metaphysical speculations. Even had
the capacity for inquiry and accurate observation been
assumed to be present, there were no opportunities for their
employment ; there were neither well-equipped laboratories
nor skilled mechanicians. This was all too true. It is not
for man to complain of circumstances, but bravely to
accept, to confront and to dominate them ; and we belong
to that race which has accomplished great things with
simple means.
FAILURE AND SUCCESS
This day twenty-three years ago, I resolved that as far
as the whole-hearted devotion and faith of one man counted,
that would not be wanting, and within six months it came
about that some of the most difficult problems connected
with Electric Waves found their solution in my laboratory,
and received high appreciation from Lord Kelvin, Lord
Rayleigh, and other leading physicists. The Royal Society
honoured me by publishing my discoveries and offering of
their own accord an appropriation from the special Parlia-
mentary Grant for the advancement of knowledge. That
day the closed gates suddenly opened, and I hoped that the
torch that was then lighted would continue to burn brighter
and brighter. But man's faith and hope require repeated
testing. For five years after this the progress was uninter-
rupted ; yet when the most generous and wide appreciation
of my work had reached almost the highest point there came
a sudden and unexpected change.
LIVING AND NON-LIVING
In the pursuit of my investigations I was unconsciously
led into the border region of physics and physiology and was
amazed to find boundary lines vanishing and points of contact
THE DEDICATION 229
emerge between the realms of the Living and Non-living.
Inorganic matter was found anything but inert ; it also
was athrill under the action of multitudinous forces that
played on it. A common reaction seemed to bring together
metal, plant and animal under a general law. They all
exhibited essentially the same phenomena of fatigue and
depression, together with possibilities of recovery and of
exaltation, yet also that of permanent irresponsiveness
which is associated with death. I was filled with wonder
at this great generalisation ; and it was with great hope
that I announced my results before the Royal Society
results demonstrated by experiments. But the physiologists
present advised me, after my address, to confine myself to
physical investigations in which my success had been assured,
rather than encroach on their preserve. I had thus un-
wittingly strayed into the domain of a new and unfamiliar
caste system and so offended its etiquette. An unconscious
theological bias was also present which confounds ignorance
with faith. It is forgotten that He, who surrounded us with
this ever-evolving mystery of creation, the ineffable wonder
that lies hidden in the microcosm of the dust particle,
enclosing within the intricacies of its atomic form the
mystery of the cosmos, has also implanted in us the desire
to question and understand. To the theological bias was
added the misgivings about the inherent bent of the Indian
mind towards mysticism and unchecked imagination.
But in India this burning imagination which can extort
new order out of a mass of apparently contradictory
facts, is also held in check by the habit of meditation.
It is this restraint which confers the power to hold the
mind in pursuit of truth in infinite patience, to wait,
and reconsider, to experimentally test and repeatedly
verify.
It is but natural that there should be prejudice, even in
science, against all innovations ; and I was prepared to
wait till the first incredulity could be overcome by further
cumulative evidence. Unfortunately there were other
230 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
incidents, which need not be dwelt on ; and there were
misrepresentations which it was impossible to remove
from this isolating distance. Thus no conditions could
have been more desperately hopeless than those which
confronted me for the next twelve years. It is necessary
to make brief reference to this period of my life ; for one
who would devote himself to the search for truth must
realise that for him there awaits no easy life, but one of
unending struggle. It is for him to cast his life as an offering,
regarding gain and loss, success and failure, as one. Yet
in my case this long persisting gloom was suddenly lifted.
My scientific deputation in 1914, from the Government of
India, gave the opportunity of giving demonstrations of
my discoveries before the leading scientific societies of the
world. This led to the acceptance of my results, and the
recognition of the importance of the Indian contribution
to the advancement of the world's science. My own experi-
ence told me how heavy, sometimes even crushing, are the
difficulties which confront an inquirer here in India ; yet it
made me stronger in my determination, that I should make
the path of those who would follow me less arduous, and
that India should never relinquish what has been won for
her after years of struggle.
THE Two IDEALS
What is it that India is to win and maintain ? Can
anything small or circumscribed ever satisfy the mind of
India ? Has her own history and the teaching of the past
prepared her for some temporary and quite subordinate
gain ? There are at this moment two complementary and
not antagonistic ideals before the country. India is drawn
into the vortex of international competition. She has ,to
become efficient in every way through the spread of educa-
tion, through performance of civic duties and responsibilities,
through activities both industrial and commercial. Neglect
of these essentials of national duty will imperil her very
THE DEDICATION 231
existence ; and sufficient stimulus for these will be found in
success and satisfaction of personal ambition.
But these alone do not ensure the life of a nation. Such
material activities have brought in the West their fruit, in
accession of power and wealth. There has been a feverish
rush even in the realm of science, for exploiting applications
of knowledge, not so often for saving as for destruction.
In the absence of some power of restraint, civilisation is
trembling in an unstable poise on the brink of ruin. Some
complementary ideal there must be to save man from that
mad rush which must end in disaster. He has followed
the lure and excitement of some insatiable ambition, not
pausing for a moment to think of the ultimate object for
which success was to serve as a temporary incentive. He has
forgotten that far more potent than competition are mutual
help and co-operation in the scheme of life. And in this
country through millenniums, there always have been some
who, beyond the immediate and absorbing prize of the hour,
sought for the realisation of the highest ideal of life not
through passive renunciation, but through active struggle.
The weakling who has refused the conflict, having acquired
nothing, has nothing to renounce. He alone who has striven
and conquered can enrich the world by the generous bestow-
ing of the fruits of his victorious experience. In India such
examples of constant realisation of ideals through work have
resulted in the formation of a continuous living tradition.
And by her latent power of rejuvenescence she has readjusted
herself through infinite transformations. Thus while the
soul of Babylon and the Nile Valley has transmigrated, ours
still remains vital and with capacity of absorbing what the
time has brought, and making it one with itself.
The ideal of giving, of enriching, in fine, of self-renuncia-
tion in response to the highest call of humanity is the other
and complementary ideal. The motive power for this is not
to be found in personal ambition but in the effacement of all
littlenesses, and in the uprooting of that ignorance which
regards anything as gain which is to be purchased at others'
232 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
loss. This I know, that no vision of truth can come except
in the absence of all sources of distraction, and when the
mind has reached the point of rest.
Public life, and the various professions will be the appro-
priate spheres of activity for many aspiring young men.
But for my disciples, I call on those very few, who, realising
some inner call, will devote their whole life with strength-
ened character and determined purpose to take part in
that infinite struggle to win knowledge for its own sake and
see truth face to face.
ADVANCEMENT AND DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE
The work already carried out in my laboratory on the
response of matter, and the unexpected revelations in plant
life, foreshadowing the wonders of the highest animal life,
have opened out very extended regions of inquiry in Physics,
in Physiology, in Medicine, in Agriculture and even in
Psychology. Problems, hitherto regarded as insoluble, have
now been brought within the sphere of experimental investi-
gation. These inquiries are obviously more extensive than
those customary either among physicists or physiologists,
since demanding interests and aptitudes hitherto more or
less divided between them. In the study of Nature, there
is a necessity of the dual view-point, this alternating yet
rhythmically unified interaction of biological thought with
physical studies, and physical thought with biological studies.
The future worker with his freshened grasp of physics, his
fuller conception of the inorganic world, as indeed thrilling
with ' the promise and potency of life ' will redouble his
former energies of work and thought. Thus he will
be in a position to winnow the old knowledge with finer
sieves, to re-search it with new enthusiasm and subtler
instruments. And thus with thought and toil and time he
may hope to bring fresher views into the old problems.
His handling of these will be at once more vital and more
kinetic, more comprehensive and unified.
THE DEDICATION 233
The further and fuller investigation of the many and
ever-opening problems of the nascent science which includes
both Life and Non-Life are among the main purposes of the
Institute I am opening to-day ; in these fields I am already
fortunate in having a devoted band of disciples, whom I have
been training for the last ten years. Their number is very
limited, but means may perhaps be forthcoming in the future
to increase them. An enlarging field of young ability
may thus be available, from which will emerge, with time
and labour, individual originality of research, productive
invention and some day even creative genius.
But high success is not to be obtained without corre-
sponding experimental exactitude, and this is needed to-day
more than ever, and to-morrow yet more again. Hence
the long battery of the highly sensitive instruments and
apparatus, designed here, which stands before you in the
cases in our entrance hall. They will tell you of the pro-
tracted struggle to get behind the deceptive seeming into
the reality that remained unseen ; of the continuous toil
and persistence called forth for overcoming human limita-
tions. In these directions through the ever-increasing
ingenuity of device for advancing science, I see at no distant
future an enhancement of skill and of invention among our
workers ; and if this skill be assured, practical applications
will not fail to follow in many fields of human activity.
The advance of science is the principal object of this
Institute and also the diffusion of knowledge. We are here
in the largest of all the many chambers of this House of
Knowledge its Lecture Room. In adding this feature,
and on a scale hitherto unusual in a Research Institute,
I have sought permanently to associate the advancement
of knowledge with the widest possible civic and public
diffusion of it ; and this without any academic limitations,
henceforth to all races and languages, to both men and
women alike, and for all time coming.
The lectures given here will not be mere repetitions
of second-hand knowledge. They will announce, to an
234 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
audience of some fifteen hundred people, the discoveries
made here, which will be demonstrated for the first time
before the public. We shall thus maintain continuously
the highest aim of a great Seat of Learning by taking
active part in the advancement and diffusion of knowledge.
Through the regular publication of the Transactions of the
Institute, these Indian contributions will reach the whole
world. The discoveries made will thus become public
property. Besides the regular staff there will be a selected
number of scholars, who by their work have shown special
aptitude, and who would devote their whole life to the
pursuit of research. They will require personal training
and their number must necessarily be limited. But it is
not the quantity but quality that is of essential importance.
It is my further wish that, as far as the limited
accommodation would permit, the facilities of this
Institute should be available to workers from all countries.
In this I am attempting to carry out the traditions of my
country, which, so far back as twenty-five centuries ago,
welcomed all scholars from different parts of the world
within the precincts of its ancient seats of learning at
Nalanda and at Taxila.
THE SURGE OF LIFE
With this widened outlook, we shall not only maintain
the highest traditions of the past but also serve the world
in nobler ways. We shall be at one with it in feeling the
common surgings of life, the common love for the good,
the true and the beautiful. In this Institute, this Study
and Garden of Life, the claim of art has not been forgotten,
for the artist has been working with us, from foundation to
pinnacle, and from floor to ceiling of this very Hall. And
beyond that arch, the Laboratory merges imperceptibly
into the garden, which is the true laboratory for the study
of Life % There the creepers, the plants and the trees are
played upon by their natural environments sunlight
THE DEDICATION 235
and wind, and the chill at midnight under the vault of
starry space. There are other surroundings also, where
they will be subjected to chromatic action of different
lights, to invisible rays, to galvanic current or electrically-
charged atmosphere. Everywhere they will transcribe in
their own script the history of their experience. From
this lofty point of observation, sheltered by the trees, the
student will watch this panorama of life. Isolated from
all distractions, he will learn to attune himself with Nature ;
the obscuring veil will be lifted and he will gradually
come to see how community throughout the great ocean
of life outweighs apparent dissimilarity. Out of discord
he will realise the great harmony.
THE OUTLOOK
These are the dreams that wove a network round my
wakeful life for many years past. The outlook is endless,
for the goal is at infinity. The realisation cannot be
through one life or one fortune but through the co-operation
of many lives and many fortunes. The possibility of a
fuller expansion will depend on very large endowments.
But a beginning must be made, and this is the genesis of
the foundation of the Institute. I came with nothing and
shall return as I came ; if something is accomplished in the
interval, that would indeed be a privilege. What I have
I will offer, and one who has shared with me the struggles
and hardships that had to be faced, has wished to bequeath
all that is hers for the same object. In all my struggling
efforts I have not been altogether solitary ; while the world
doubted, there had been a few, now in the City of Silence,
who never wavered in their trust.
Till a few weeks ago it seemed that I should have to
look to the future for securing the necessary expansion of
scope and for permanence of the Institute. But response
is being slowly awakened in answer to the need. The
Government have intimated their desire to sanction grants
236 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
towards placing the Institute on a permanent basis, the
extent of which will be proportionate to the public interest
in this undertaking. Out of those who would feel an
interest in securing adequate endowment, the very first
contributions have come from two from a distant province,
to whom I had been personally unknown.
INDIA'S SPECIAL^APTITUDES IN CONTRIBUTION TO
SCIENCE
The excessive specialisation of modern science in the
West has led to the danger of losing sight of the funda-
mental fact that there can be but one truth, one science
which includes all the branches of knowledge. How chaotic
appear the happenings in Nature ! Is Nature a Cosmos,
in which the human mind is some day to realise the uniform
march of sequence, order and law ? India through her
habit of mind is peculiarly- fitted to realise the idea of
unity, and to see in the phenomenal world an orderly
universe. This trend of thought led me unconsciously to
the dividing frontiers of different sciences and shaped the
course of my work in its constant alternations between
the theoretical and the practical, from the investigation of
the inorganic world to that of organised life and its multi-
farious activities of growth, of movement, and even of
sensation. On looking over the different lines of investi-
gations carried on during the last twenty-three years, I
now discover in them a natural sequence. The study
of Electric Waves led to the devising of methods for
the production of the shortest electric waves and these
bridged over the gulf between visible and invisible
light ; from this followed accurate investigation on the
optical properties of invisible waves, the determination of
the refractive powers of various substances opaque to light,
the discovery of the effect of air film on total reflection and
the polarising properties of strained rocks and of electric
tourmalines. The invention of a new type of self-recovering
THE DEDICATION 237
electric receiver made of galena was the forerunner of
,the application of crystal detectors for extending the range
of wireless signals. In physical chemistry the detection of
molecular change in matter under electric stimulation
led to a new theory of photographic action. The fruitful
theory of stereo-chemistry was strengthened by the pro-
duction of two kinds of artificial molecules, which like the
two kinds of sugar, rotated the polarised electric wave
either to the right or to the left. Again the ' fatigue ' of
my receivers led to the discovery of universal sensitiveness
inherent in matter as shown by its electric response. It
was next possible to study this response in its modification
under changing environment, of which its exaltation under
stimulants and its abolition under poisons are among the
most astonishing outward manifestations. And as a single
example of the many applications of this fruitful discovery,
the characteristics of an artificial retina gave a clue to the
unexpected discovery of ' binocular alternation of vision '
in man ; each eye thus supplements its fellow by turns,
instead of acting as a continuously yoked pair, as hitherto
believed.
PLANT LIFE AND ANIMAL LIFE
In natural sequence to the investigation of the response
in ' inorganic ' matter, has followed a prolonged study of
the activities of plant-life as compared with the corre-
sponding functioning of animal life. But since plants for
the most part seem motionless and passive, and are indeed
limited in their range of movement, special apparatus of
extreme delicacy had to be invented, which should magnify
the tremor of excitation and also measure the perception
period of a plant to a thousandth part of a second. Ultra-
microscopic movements were measured and recorded ;
the length measured being often smaller than a fraction
of a single wave-length of light. The secret of plant-life
was thus for the first time revealed by the autographs of
238 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
the plant itself. This evidence of the plant's own script
removed the long-standing error which divided the vegetable
world into sensitive and insensitive. The remarkable
performance of the ' Praying ' Palm Tree of Faridpore, which
bows, as if to prostrate itself, every evening, is only one of
the latest instances which show that the supposed insensi-
bility of plants and still more of rigid trees is to be ascribed
to wrong theory and defective observation. My investi-
gations show that all plants, even the trees, are fully
alive to changes of environment ; they respond visibly
to all stimuli, even to the slight fluctuations of light caused
by a drifting cloud. This series of investigations has
completely established the fundamental unity of life-
reactions in plant and animal, as seen in a similar periodic
insensibility in both, corresponding to what we call sleep
as seen in the death-spasm, which takes place in the plant
as in the animal. This unity in organic life is also exhibited
in that spontaneous pulsation which in the animal is heart
beat ; it appears in the identical effects of stimulants,
anaesthetics and of poisons in vegetable and animal tissues.
This physiological identity in the effect of drugs is regarded
by leading physicians as of great significance in the scientific
advance of Medicine ; since here we have a means of testing
the effect of drugs under conditions far simpler than those
presented by the patient, far subtler too, as well as more
humane than those of experiments on animals.
Growth of plants and its variations under different
treatment is instantly recorded by my Crescograph.
Authorities expect this method of investigation will advance
practical agriculture ; since for the first time we are able
to analyse and study separately the conditions which
modify the rate of growth. Experiments which would
have taken months, their results vitiated by unknown
changes, can now be carried out in a few minutes.
Returning to pure science, no phenomena in plant-life
are so extremely varied or have yet been more incapable
of generalisation than the ' tropic ' movements, such as
THE DEDICATION 239
the twining of tendrils, the heliotropic movements of some
towards and of others away from light, and the opposite
geotropic movements of the root and shoot, in the direction
of gravitation or away from it. My latest investigations
have established a single fundamental reaction which
underlies effects so extremely diverse.
Finally, I may say a word of that other new and un-
expected chapter which is opening out from my demonstra-
tion of ' nervous ' impulse in plants. The speed with which
the nervous impulse courses through the plant has been
determined ; its nervous excitability and the variation of
that excitability have likewise been measured. The nervous
impulse in plant and in man is found exalted or inhibited
under identical conditions. We may even follow this
parallelism in what seem extreme cases. A plant carefully
protected under glass from outside shocks, looks sleek and
flourishing ; but its higher nervous function is then found
to be atrophied. But when a succession of blows is rained
on this effete and bloated specimen, the shocks themselves
create nervous channels and arouse anew the deteriorated
nature.
A question long perplexing physiologists and psy-
chologists alike is that concerned with the mystery that
underlies memory. But now, through certain experiments
I carried out here, it is possible to trace ' memory im-
pressions ' backwards even in inorganic matter, such
latent impressions being capable of subsequent revival.
Again the tone of our sensation is determined by the
intensity of nervous excitation that reaches the central
perceiving organ. It would theoretically be possible to
change the tone or quality of our sensation, if means could
be discovered by which the nervous impulse would become
modified during transit. Investigation on nervous impulse
in plants has led to the discovery of a controlling method,
which was found equally effective in regard to the nervous
impulse in animal.
Thus the lines of physics, of physiology and of psychology
240 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
converge and meet. And here will assemble those who
would seek oneness amidst the manifold. Here it is that
the genius of India should find its true blossoming.
The thrill in matter, the throb of life, the pulse of growth,
the impulse coursing through the nerve and the resulting
sensations, how diverse are these, and yet so unified !
How strange it is that the tremor of excitation in nervous
matter should not merely be transmitted but transmuted
and reflected like the image on a mirror from a different
plane of life in sensation and in affection, in thought and
in emotion. Of these which is more real, the material
body or the image which is independent of it ? Which of
those is undecaying, and which of these is beyond the
reach of death ?
It was a woman in the Vedic times, who when asked to
take her choice of the wealth that would be hers for the
asking, inquired whether that would win for her deathless-
ness. What would she do with it, if it did not raise her
above death ? This has always been the cry of the soul of
India, not for addition of material bondage, but to work
out through struggle her self -chosen destiny and win;
immortality. Many a nation had risen in the past and
won the empire of the world. A few buried fragments
are all that remain as memorials of the great dynasties that
wielded the temporal power. There is, however, another
element which finds its incarnation in matter, yet transcends
its transmutation and apparent destruction : that is the
burning flame born of thought which has been handed
down through fleeting generations.
Not in matter but in thought, not in possessions nor
even in attainments but in ideals, is to be found the
seed of immortality. Not through material acquisition
but in generous diffusion of ideas and ideals can the true
empire of humanity be established. Thus to Asoka, to
whom belonged this vast empire, bounded by the inviolate
THE DEDICATION 241
seas, after he had tried to ransom the world by giving
away to the utmost, there came a time when he had nothing
I more to give, except one half of an Amlaki fruit. This
was his last possession, and his anguished cry was that since
he had nothing more to give, let the half of the Amlaki
be accepted as his final gift.
Asoka's emblem of the Amlaki will be seen on the
I cornices of the Institute, and towering above all is the
I symbol of the thunderbolt. It was the Rishi Dadhichi,
j the pure and blameless, who offered his life that the divine
weapon, the thunderbolt, might be fashioned out of his
! bones to smite evil and exalt righteousness. It is but
half 'of the Amlaki that we can offer now. But the past
7 shall be reborn in a yet nobler future. We stand here
I to-day and resume work to-morrow, so that by the efforts
of our lives and our unshaken faith in the future we may
all help to build the greater India yet to be,
- a
CHAPTER XIX
THE BOSE INSTITUTE
WE have given in Bose's own words the ideals that animated
him in the foundations of his Institute, and his inaugural
address produced a profound impression not only in India
but also in the West. We may in this connection quote the
following passage from a leading article in The Times :
When Sir Jagadis chose the teaching of Science as his vocation
a generation back, it was generally held that by its very con-
stitution the Indian mind would always turn away from the study
of Nature to metaphysical speculation. At that time, even
had the capacity for enquiry and accurate observation been
assumed, there were no opportunities for their employment ;
neither well-equipped laboratories nor skilled mechanicians
existed. Little or nothing had then been done to break the
almost exclusively literary mould into which higher Indian
education had been directed. To bringing abcut the scientific
renaissance Sir Jagadis has influentially contributed. Indians
are justly proud of the possession of a few men who have gained
world-wide reputation in their particular fields of activity, and
this pride reacts strongly on public opinion. At the Research
Institute a group of Indian post-graduate students devote their
lives to research. The published Transactions of the Institute
show that under the leadership of this eminent Bengali, Indian
research is making substantial contribution to scientific know-
ledge ; that in this field there is no fundamental difference
between the Western and the Eastern mind, as was assumed
when Sir Jagadis began his work. It may be, as one writer
said, that the bent of research and the colour of theories will
take something from the inherent qualities of the Indian mind ;
but the faith in ascertainable truths and the appeal to facts can
242
THE BOSE INSTITUTE 243
underlie that research and those theories equally well in India
and in Europe. In this no less than in other fields of knowledge
India has her special contributions to make. Sir J. C. Bose's
work has shown that through her meditative habit of mind
she is peculiarly fitted to realise the idea of unity and to see
in the phenomenal world an orderly universe, and this habit
confers the power to hold the mind in pursuit of truth in infinite
patience.
The Athenceum wrote :
The foundation of an Institute for research in pure science
is an event in the history of India. The publication of the
Transactions, the firstfruits of its activity, shows that it is an
event also in the history of science.
We may now describe the Institute with its great
scheme of continuing the researches of its founder, and
of carrying on his large conceptions of the investigation of
the processes of life with the help of all the resources and
refinements of the physical sciences.
The building stands conveniently central for the intel-
lectual activities and for the public of Calcutta. The
building is of striking and dignified design, constructed of
fine greyish purple sandstone, in Indian style of the pre-
Mahommedan period, with symbolic ornament and details
throughout. In front is a small garden, appropriately of
sensitive plants, in which are a fountain and pool, and a
sun-dial and an electrically controlled clock-dial for mutual
comparison. A distinctive sign of the Institute and its
work is a large double tracing, being automatically made
in two parallel curves before the eyes of the observer.
One of these curves records the result of the essential
changes of the atmospheric environments temperature,
light, etc. while the other summarises the responses of
a large tree to those changing conditions for every minute
of the twenty- four hours. This autograph of the tree
gives striking and vivid demonstration that all plants,
including even rigid trees, are fully sensitive to the changes
around them. Even the passage of a drifting cloud
244 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
is perceived and recorded by the tree in its own peculiar
script and by an instrument devised for the purpose.
Here, too, we have an illustration of the significance of the
Institute as no mere laboratory of this or that peculiar
line of physical or physiological research, but as from
the first aiming at the concentration of the main resources
and methods of the physical sciences, and their bearing
upon the central problem of all the biological sciences
the problem of the essential processes of life itself.
The spacious Entrance Hall has a long series of glass
cases which at once exhibit and preserve the essential
apparatus of many past years of inquiry, from physical
researches on electric waves to physiological researches
on life. These are arranged in sequence of increasing
perfection in observation and record. Step by step one
passes from instruments direct and simple, sometimes
rough and ready, to the present wellnigh magical elabora-
tion of delicacy and exactitude. Here we have Bose's
first apparatus for space signalling so far back as 1895.
Recent instruments record the hitherto imperceptible
pulsation of a plant's growth, marking perception-time
within the thousandth part of a second and measuring
ultra-microscopic movements. Thus the significance of
the Institute as a centre of new invention of the most
delicate apparatus, and as a centre of exceptional skill in
construction, with the importance of these to science and
eventually to industry, becomes apparent. For it is here
worth noting that most of the great physical discoverers
and inventors, as from Watt to Kelvin, or back to Galileo
and Leonardo da Vinci, or onwards to Bell and Edison,
arid now to Bose himself, have been their own instrument-
makers. For hand and brain alternately stimulate each
other, to the complemental advances we call respectively
' discovery ' and ' invention.'
Passing by the great Lecture Hall, we may look into
the actual Laboratories, where researches are in progress.
These are partly in the main building, but in greater number
THE BOSE INSTITUTE 245
in the annex ; and indeed primarily in the Garden around,
with which we may therefore best begin. Here sensitive
and other moving plants preponderate, like twiners and
climbers, which cover a long and shady pergola ready to
serve as a college cloister with its ' Philosophers' Way.'
The nearer ground is laid out with pleasant lawns, fountain
and tank for water-plants, and a group of trees, some old
inmates of the Garden, others lately transplanted hither,
at full size, under anaesthetics. Under these trees is a
variety of apparatus, and above is perched an open platform
for observation and thought by turns, since this alternation
of keen outlook and meditative interpretation is the very
process of science, the rhythm of its intellectual life.
From these and other beginnings of the Bio-physical
Garden we enter the Laboratories. Here beyond the small
marble entrance porch, again kept free for observation and
meditation, are glass-houses white, red and blue -for the
study of the growth and behaviour of plants under light
from opposite ends of the spectrum, as compared with
normal conditions. Beyond are the larger laboratories
electrical, chemical, mechanical, microscopical, and
physiological.
Having thus broadly surveyed the new Institute, and
seen, or foreseen, something of its working, we may now
enter the great Lecture Hall, which is seated for some 1500
auditors. Here the inauguration of the Institute took
place, and courses of lectures by the Director and others
are regularly given embodying the main results of the work
of the Institute.
As the laboratories and grounds of the Institute afford
various departures from conventional design, so too does
this Hall, perhaps as yet the very best of environments
for scientific exposition. It is of simple, efficient and
beautiful plan, in which a large audience can at once see
and hear without the visual interruption and the acoustic
defects too common in auditoria designed without the
collaboration of the physicist. Its purpose is neither
246 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
restrictedly scientific, as its magnitude shows, nor yet
simply popular. The essential idea is that of providing
for the scientific exposition of new knowledge, and this
at its highest appeals to the intelligent public.
The ornamentation of the hall appeals alike to scholar,
artist, and the student of science. The ceiling design, with its
great radiating lotus, is freely adapted from one of the
cathedral caverns of Ajanta, and is bordered with the
sensitive plants so specially connected with the work of the
Institute. The body of the Hall is left quiet and plain, as
befits its purpose of attention ; but above the lantern screen
an allegorical frieze has been painted ' The Quest/ by
Nandalal Bose, a well-known member of that little group
of Calcutta artists who are recovering the traditions of
Indian painting, and adapting them to modern interest and
to individual expression. Starting from the sacred river at
dawn, strides forth the tall and keen-braced figure of
Intellect, feeling the sword-edge with which he has to
cleave his way, and companioned in his adventurous
journey by his bride Imagination, who inspires him with her
I _magic flute. The final and focal ornament of the Hall is a
great relief in bronze, silver and gold, of the sun-god rising
in his chariot to the daily cosmic strife of light with darkness.
How this new Institute may act and react with Indian
thought and life, as well as with the world's science, and
how also it may advance here industry, there agriculture,
there again medicine, and above all the needed emancipation
and renewal of higher education, it is too soon to predict.
Enough for the present that this flowering of a creative life
should now fully be opened. Its fruits will ere long be
maturing, and its seeds of new activities spreading through-
out India and flying over the world.
The substance of the foregoing description was written
immediately after the opening of the Institute. Two
years have since elapsed, and already the hopes then enter-
tained are in the way of ample fulfilment. Two large
THE BOSE INSTITUTE 247
volumes of ' Transactions ' of the Institute have so far been
published. They contain more than two score of papers,
which embody many of Bose's initiatives, worked out
under his continual direction and with the help of the
research scholars and assistants, who by this means are
brought into closest contact with their leader and enabled
to catch his spirit and enthusiasm.
There remain, however, many needs to be provided for,
if the enterprise is to be prepared for covering the vast
fields of clearly conceived research. Much is still wanting
before space and equipment can be deemed adequate ;
much before such provision can be made for the scholars
that they may continue their work unhampered by anxiety
for the future. In this service they can look for no worldly
advantage, nor is any honour likely to be conferred on them
by the University. For the test applied in the examinations
of the Indian Universities is that of knowledge thoroughly
accepted and established in the West ; and it cannot be
until after the passage of many years that Bose's discoveries
will reach the academic centres through the medium of
standard text-books.
Hence the permanence of the Institute, and the con-
tinuance and progressive expansion of its activity, were
realised as a matter of great urgency. Bose, it is true,
has made over all his fortune to the Trustees ; but an
international Institute of Science cannot be built up on
an endowment of necessity so inadequate. And it will
be obvious that for such a man as Bose to be beset by
business and financial anxieties could not fail to be
disastrous. His one consuming desire is and must be to con-
centrate the whole of his powers upon his work, in order to
secure the full initiative, and wherever possible the com-
pletion, of the many fresh lines of discovery to which his
researches incessantly lead lines which, it would appear, no
other has so clearly discerned, if indeed conceived at all.
But this necessary quiet and leisure for the pursuit of
work is plainly not yet to be his for several years. He has
248 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
had to train his successors for the administration of the
Institute. He had the initial good fortune to secure as
Assistant Director an old pupil who proved his ability
and his devotion in the pursuit of research. To those who
are working under him Bose has given every opportunity
of developing their individuality.
It was towards the end of 1919 that Bose felt impelled,
in the interests of his Institute, to visit England there to
convince, fully and finally, the scientific public of the
importance of the modern Indian contribution to science.
But the time chosen for this purpose did not at all seem
promising. Bose's English friends uttered abundant
warning as to the distracted political and social conditions
of England. The national affairs, the national temper, had
made little apparent progress, in the first year of nominal
peace, towards a recovery of the normal. He would find it
impossible, they said, to arouse any interest in such scientific
work as his, still less in such a scheme as the Calcutta
Institute. The discouragement was powerful and various ;
but in spite of it Bose persisted in his plans and reached
London in the middle of November.
His reception was extraordinarily different from what
he had been led, by friendly voices in England and India,
to expect. It was as though the entire British world
had been prepared, by every sort of experience, to receive
and acclaim the discoveries which, in previous years, had
seemed to be problematical and remote. It was as though
all doors were flung wide open.
What may be described as the authentic recognition
by leading thinkers came in December, in the form of a
meeting at the India ^Office, arranged by Mr. Montagu,
the Secretary of State for India, who had been deeply
interested in Bose's work ever since, a good many years
before, during his tour as Under Secretary, he had met with
it in Calcutta. Bose was invited to give a lecture and
demonstration, with Mr. Arthur Balfour in the chair. There
can be no exaggeration in saying that the occasion was
THE BOSE INSTITUTE 249
without parallel in the records of the India Office, and we
may take it as a fine and peculiarly agreeable promise of a
new spirit in the governmental conception of India. The
lecture-room was filled with a distinguished and highly
representative audience, whose response was immediate
and enthusiastic. They were shown a typical series of
results, and were given a demonstration of the powers of
the Magnetic Crescograph, which was doubtless for those
present a startling revelation of the widening world of
experimental knowledge.
So great was the interest excited that full summaries
of the lecture were cabled to the Continent and to America,
while the British Press accorded to the discourse an amount
of space, and to the Indian savant a warmth of apprecia-
tion, which is unusual in newspaper treatment of scientific
events. A leading article in The Times contained the
following passage :
Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose is a fine example of the fertile
union between the immemorial mysticism of Indian philosophy,
and the experimental methods of Western science. Whilst we
in Europe were still steeped in the rude empiricism of barbaric
life, the subtle Eastern had swept the whole universe into a
synthesis and had seen the one in all its changing manifestations.
. . . He is pursuing science not only for itself but for its applica-
tion to the benefit of mankind. We welcome the additions to
knowledge which he has made, but most of all we welcome in
him the evidence that India and Great Britain can unite their
genius to mutual advantage.
Professor J. Arthur Thomson wrote in the course of an
article in the New Statesman :
It is in accordance with the genius of India that the in-
vestigator should press further towards unity than we have
yet hinted at, should seek to correlate responses and memory
impressions in the living with their analogues in inorganic
matter, and should see in anticipation the lines of physics, of
physiology and of psychology converging and meeting. (These
are) questionings of a prince of experimenters whom we are
proud to welcome in our midst to-day.
R 2
250 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
Within a month, therefore, of his arrival in London
Bose had overflowing evidence of the most eager and wide-
spread interest in his work and its significance for the
world. As regards his fellow-investigators and the educated
public in general, this interest is not to be wondered at.
The years of the war, the years since his last visit to England,
have been a period of unexampled mental upheaval and,
in the sphere of applied science, of experiment and achieve-
ment surpassing everything hitherto known. With this
there has come an intense stimulus to all inquiry and
discussion relating to the mysterious activities of life, and
more particularly to the phenomena in the borderland
between the animate and the so-called inanimate. In that
curiosity to-day the average person shares as never before.
As regards the interest of the leaders in thought and
scientific inquiry, Bose has fully secured it in recent years.
When, before the war, he set up a temporary laboratory in
Maida Vale, he was continually called upon by men
distinguished in many walks of life. During the spring of
1920 his laboratory in Bloomsbury Square was visited by
almost all the leading men of science. He was invited
by both the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and
gave his addresses and demonstrations before highly
appreciative audiences. The Vice-Chancellor of Leeds
University sent him a most cordial invitation to lecture.
In offering him the welcome of the University, Sir Michael
Sadler, who had recently been in India as Chairman of the
Commission for the Reform of Calcutta University, spoke
with the authority of personal knowledge of Bose's work in
India as University teacher as well as original investigator.
' India/ he said, ' needed more science in her secondary
and higher education, and needed to be delivered from
the tyranny of excessive examinations. When he and his
colleagues were inquiring into the educational work in the
Presidency of Bengal, he realised more vividly than before
what Sir Jagadis's work meant not only to Bengal but to
India. It was the genius of the Indian and the genius of
THE BOSE INSTITUTE 251
the Englishman to do the finest work under conditions of
freedom and under the stimulus of a master mind. The
great work in 'science and in arts would be done not under
the punctual and meritorious preparation for an examina-
tion, under a syllabus designed by a Sanhedrin, but in
institutes devoted to the free investigation of some great
problem. Sir Jagadis Bose's name, and the name of the
Research Institute he founded in Calcutta, acted to thousands
in India as a beacon light, because science was studied for
the love of science, and with freedom and zeal.'
There followed an honour from the University of Aber-
deen, which awarded Sir Jagadis Bose the honorary degree
of LL.D., in recognition of the important contributions
which he had made for the advance of general physiology
and for his investigations on the Irritability of Plants.
Finally, in relation to this matter of formal acceptance
and recognition by his European peers, a word remains to
be said touching the most significant incident of all. The
honour recognised by men of science throughout the British
Dominions as the proudest of all is the award of the Fellow-
ship of the Royal Society. That is being conferred upon
Bose as this volume goes to press (May 1920), in recognition
of his contributions, not only in physics, but in physiology
also. It comes to him as the culmination of a series of
discussions and incidents spread over two decades, and at
the last in a collective decision which had in it something
of dramatic unanimity and completeness. In May 1901
Bose had communicated to the Royal Society his first results
in plant response ; and, as has been recorded in this
narrative, his paper was rejected. It took almost twenty
years for the truth to make its way completely into the
light twenty years of persistent and unswerving labour
devoted to the working out of new methods of inquiry ; the
victorious following out of the experiments which, questioned
and belittled in the first stage, have since added a marvellous
new province to the empire of human knowledge. What was
252 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
deemed, in 1901, to be dubious and obscure was, in 1920,
acknowledged and acclaimed. Bose's former opponents
had now become his warmest and staunchest friends ;
and in the Royal Society, physicists, physiologists, and
psychologists united in according the honour of the Fellow-
ship to their fellow-worker and revealer from the East.
Two things in particular seem worthy of clear state-
ment in this connection. The first is that among men of
science full recognition conies earliest to those whose
labours lie in clearly defined paths and well within the
frontiers laid down by the orthodox classification of the
sciences. It comes last and most hardly to men like Bose,
who find themselves impelled over the frontiers as drawn,
moving among the conceptions of different sciences and
pursuing experiments in territory where, inevitably, they
are looked upon as intruders.
The second thing is this. There are some who regarded
the prolonged delay in the grant of official recognition by
the high court of scientific judgment as due to prejudice
against a stranger. In Bose's case any such hypothesis
would be absurd. From beginning to end he has stood
among his fellows simply as a man of science. In the
discussions over the nature and final value of the extra-
ordinary results with which his name and fame are identi-
fied, there has never been any hint of misunderstanding,
or collision between East and West. His great work has
won for him the enthusiastic admiration of scientific men
all over the world ; and this became strikingly evident
on a recent occasion. A persistent opponent of his wrote
to The Times questioning the reliability of the crescograph
and suggesting that a demonstration should be given at
a physiological laboratory before leading experts. Bose
accepted the challenge, and the result of his demonstration
was the occasion of a conjoint tribute so remarkable that
it probably stands by itself in recent science. The following
appeared in Nature, May 6, 1920 :
THE BOSE INSTITUTE 253
Sir Jagadis Bose's crescograph is so remarkably sensitive
that doubt was recently expressed as to the reality of its indica-
tions as regards plant growth : and the suggestion was made
that the effects shown by it were due to physical changes. A
demonstration in University College, London, on April 23, has
however led Lord Rayleigh and Professors Bayliss, V. H.
Blackman, A. J. Clark, W. C. Clinton, and F. G. Donnan to
state in The Times of May 4 : ' We are satisfied that the growth
of plant tissues is correctly recorded by this instrument, and
at a magnification of from one million to ten million times.'
Sir W. H. Bragg and Professor F. W. Oliver, who have seen
similar demonstrations elsewhere, give like testimony that the
crescograph shows actual response of living plant tissues to
stimulus.
The following extract is reproduced from Bose's dignified
letter to The Times, May 5 :
Criticism which transgresses the limit of fairness must
inevitably hinder the advance of knowledge. My special in-
vestigations have by their very nature presented extraordinary
difficulties. I regret to say that during a period of 20 years
these difficulties have been greatly aggravated by misrepresenta-
tions and worse. . . . The obstacles deliberately placed in my
path I can now ignore and forget. If the result of my work, by
upsetting any particular theory, has roused the hostility here
and there of an individual, I can the more take comfort in the
warm welcome which has been extended to me by the great
body of scientific men of this country.
The difficulty among the orthodox, in science as in
religion, is the relation of new truth to old theory. The
innovator whose word or work cannot be accepted without
the modification or rejection of established dogma knows
of a surety what his destiny is. He must fight his way.
The kingdom of knowledge is taken by storm. In the case
of J. C. Bose, the Royal Society has admitted the innovator
and crowned his work.
The life-story of Jagadis Bose is worthy of close and
ardent consideration by all young Indians whose purpose
is shaping itself towards the service of science or other
254 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
high cause of the intelligence or the social spirit. It is
possible that, looking upon the triumph of the end and
knowing nothing of the long uphill road, the slow costly
attainment of ends, they may think that a fine laboratory
or other material endowment the antecedent condition of
successful achievement in intellectual creation. The truth,
indeed, is far otherwise. The countless obstacles which
had to be surmounted only called forth in Bose all the en-
durance and all the effort which are latent in manly natures,
welding them to the fullest strength of character and
intensity of thought by which alone a great life-task can be
accomplished. In contemplating the great career of his
countryman, the young Indian will be stimulated to put
brain and hand to fine tasks, nothing fearing. Thus will
he be inspired not only to recover the noble intellectual
traditions of the Indian past, but to restate these traditions
in modern terms, and find the greatest challenge for mind
and soul in achieving their vital relation with the coming age.
By impassioned inquiry and research, by resolute and un-
fearing work, by direct and personal action on positive lines
and in the constructive spirit by these things, and by
nothing short of these, can India or Europe or the vast
enduring brotherhood of mankind be carried further along
the road to their deeply needed and long awaited recon-
struction.
But now the question may be asked many indeed will
find themselves impelled to ask it What of the teeming
and toiling millions of India : what part have they in these
great schemes of science, and what can such schemes do for
them ? Of course, with only too great readiness the same
question may be asked in respect of the millions of Europe and
America for it is clear that their full awakening to science
is still far off, their incorporation into the best that
civilisation has to offer. The answer in both cases must
be essentially the same : the arousal and incorporation
must in the end come, unless our modern world of know-
ledge and society is to go down in tragic failure.
THE BOSE INSTITUTE 255
As regards India, it is profoundly true, as it is still
true of the European multitudes, that illiteracy does
not necessarily connote darkness. The Indian villager is
not nearly so ignorant as by the average of literates he
is judged to be. The needed popularisation of science
is commonly thought of by us as a matter of definite
exposition to the untaught ; but that is only part of it.
In the meantiine, and continuously, the traditional life
of the people, with its spiritual roots in the organic being
of Society and its folk-knowledge linking the generations,
enables the people to get at something of the greater know-
ledge in their own fashion. The story of a Moslem villager
who invited Bose to enter his liouse so that his women-
folk might see him is delightfully to the point. It was
soon after the Indian Press had spread the news that the
Bengal wonder-worker had been received with acclamation
in every country he visited during his tour round the world.
' But am I not a stranger ? ' Bose asked, ' and do you not
maintain the seclusion of your zenana ? ' ' You/ replied
the Moslem triumphantly, ' are no stranger. You are one
of us. Has not your voice reached everywhere ? ' So,
too, with Bose's village neighbours at Sijberia. Of his
experimental garden there they say, ' That is where, at
night, the plants talk to him ! '
In their own way then a very real way the simple
labouring folk may be, and even now are being reached by
such vital movements of quickening and renewing litera-
ture and advancing knowledge as their poets and men of
letters, headed by Rabindranath Tagore, their men of
science headed by Jagadis Bose, are opening out to them
to them, and above all to their children ; for manifestly
it is only with the coming generations that such sowings
can be brought to harvest, and thence again to fresh sowings
on ever widening fields.
It is here, perhaps, in the quietude of his village that
we might have left him at the close of this record. But I
seem to hear his words of protest : ' No, it is not in the
256 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE
village that my work is to end ; from thejvillage I came out,
to discover a larger world. Like that of my boyhood's
hero, Kama, my life has been ever one of combat^ and
must be to the last. It is not for man to complain of
circumstances, but bravely to accept, to confront, and to
dominate them. The faith in which my long-dreamed-of
Temple of Science has been at last brought within reach
of fulfilment, is the faith that when one has gained the
vision of a purpose to which he can and must dedicate him-
self wholly, then the closed doors will be opened and the
seemingly impossible become attainable/
Hence, accordingly, the symbol of Bose's life, struggle,
and achievement is to be found less in the village that
nourished his childhood and provides the periodic retreat
for his maturity, than in the abounding energy of the great
cit in which, of necessity, his Institute is placed and
from which it draws its power and inspiration. He alone
who has striven and conquered can enrich the world by a
generous bestowing of the fruits of his victorious experience.
INDEX
ABERDEEN, honorary degree, Uni-
versity of, 251
JEther waves, effect of, on plants,
176
Allotropism, conductivity method
in detection of, 75
American Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science, 148
Asoka, inscription of, 119
AthencBum, The, 243
Automatic response in plant and
animal, 135
Automatism, 134
BALFOUR, A. J., 146, 248
Berlin, lecture at, 65
Bose, Ananda Mohan, 32
Bose, Bhagaban Chunder, 4, n, 39
Bose, Lady, 91, 218, 222
Bose, Nandalal, 223
Bose Institute, the, 119, 242
British "Association, Bradford meet-
ing of, 92
Liverpool meeting of, 61
Brunton, Sir Lauder, 147
Bull, Mrs. Ole, 221
CAMBRIDGE, lecture before the Uni-
versity of, 146, 250
undergraduate days at, 28
Carbonic acid, effect of, on growth,
175
effect of , on irritability, 149
Clark University, lecture at, 148
Coherer, 57, 71, 72
inadequacy of the theory of the,
72
Conducting path, fashioning of, by
stimulus, 212
Cornu, M., 40, 64
Crescograph, the Balanced, 174
the High Magnification, 158
the Magnetic, 159, 160
Crookes, Sir William, 146
DACOIT, incidents connected with, 7
Darwin, Sir Francis, 31, 146
Death-march, rate of, 151
Death-Recorder, the, 133
Dedication, the, 227
Deputation, scientific, to Europe,
44, 88, 137, 144, 159
Desmodium gyrans, 134, 145, 150
ELECTRIC Probe, localisation of
sense-organs by, 189
response of metals, 88, 93, 94,
95, 96, 97, 98
response of ordinary plants, 94,
103, 104, 105
Touch, periodicity of, 73
Touch, positive and negative,
73, 77
waves, researches on, 57, 58, 59
FATIGUE in metal, 72, 93
in plants, 132
Foster, Sir Michael, 30, 96
GALENA as receiver of radiation, 85
Gandhi, M. K., 224
Geo-electric response, 188
Geo-perception, latent period for,
176, 191
Geo-perceptive layer, localisation
of, 190
Geotropism of root, explanation of,
192
of shoot, 1 88
257
258
INDEX
Gokhale, G. K., 224
Growth, automatic record of, 154
effect of carbonic acid on, 175
effect of light on, 176
effect of minute and large doses
of poison on, 157
effect of stimulus on, 182
effect of touch on, 155
effect of wireless stimulus on, 179
effect of wounds on, 149
pulsation in, 155
rejuvenescence and renewal of,
136
HALL, President Stanley, 148
Harper, Professor, 137
Hartley, Dr., 83
Harvard University, lecture at, 148
Heliotropism, explanation of, 186
positive and negative, 166
Hertz, 52
Howes, Professor, 103, 105
INORGANIC matter, electric response
of, 89
electric response of, effect of
fatigue on, 93
electric response of, effect of
minute and large doses of
' poison ' on, 96
electric response of, effect of
stimulant on, 94
KARNA, 17, 256
Kelvin, Lord, 40, 61, 67
LAFONT, Father, 23
Latent period, determination of, in
plants, 212
Light, continuity of effect of, and
electric radiation, 79
Lighthouse, electro-magnetic, 63
Linnean Society, 103
Lipmann, 64
'MAHABHARATA/ the, 16
Medicine, Royal Society of, 147
Memory, impression on metal, 208
revival of, 208
Molecular disposition, effect of, on
nervous impulse, 215
Molecular strain, theory of, 79, 80
in solution of metallic nitrates, 83
Montagu, E. S., 248
Mother, determining influence of,
25, 37
Multiple response, 134
Miinsterberg, 211
NALANDA, ruins of, 119
Nation, The, 146
Nature, 252
Nervous impulse, control of, 213,
214, 215
dual character of, 171
' Nervous ' impulse in plants, 212
New York, lecture at, 148
Nivedita, the Sister, 221
Nyctitropism, 193
Nymphaea, night-watch of, 195
OPTICAL Lever, the, 129
Oxford, lecture at, 145, 251
PARIS, International Congress of, 88
Pfeffer, 160, 167
Photographic action, strain theory
of, 80
throughout entire spectrum, 81
Photography, fading of latent
image, 81
without light, 83
Phototropism. See Heliotropism
Physique, Societe de, Paris, elected
honorary member of, 64
Plant response, abolition of, at
death, 151
automatism and continuity with
multiple, 134
death spasm in, 133
electric spasm in, 133
effect of carbonic acid on, 148
effect of chloroform on, 148
effect of cloud on, 148
effect of fatigue on, 132
effect of sulphuretted hydrogen
on, 148
effect of wounds on, 149
Plants, sensitiveness of, 172
sleep and waking movements in,
195, 198
' true ' sleep of, 203
Poincare, M., 57
' Praying ' Palm, the, 198
Presidency College, Calcutta, 33,
38,68
QUINCKE, Professor, 65
INDEX
259
RAY, Sir P. C., 223
Rayleigh, Lord, 30, 61, 93, 100
Reay, Lord, 65
Research Institute, memorial for,
67
Response in the Living and Non-
living, 87
of inorganic matter, 88, 94, 95, 96
Ripon, Lord, 32
Roscoe, Sir Henry, 65
Royal Institution, Friday Evening
Discourse at, 61, 63, 98, 146
Royal Society, the, 39, 99, 121
elected Fellow of the, 251
Royal Society of Medicine, the, 147
SADLER, Sir Michael, 250
Shaw, Bernard, 146
Sircar, Sir Nilratan, 224
Sleep of plants, 193
Spectator, The, 107
Spencer, Herbert, 107
Statesman, The New, 249
Stimulus, Bose's Law of Direct and
Indirect Effects of, 184
classification of, 182
Strain-cell, 79
TAGORE, Abanindra Nath, 223
Tagore, Gaganendra Nath, 223
Tagore, Rabindranath, 222
Taxila, 114
Thermo-crescent curve, 156
Thomson, Professor Arthur, 249
Thorp, J. G., 221
Times, The, 67, 249, 253
Tropisms, 181
VIENNA, lecture at, 147
Vines, Professor Sidney H., 30, 103
Vivekananda, 91
WARBURG, Professor, 65
Washington, lecture at, 148
Weber- Fechner's Law, inadequacy
of, 210
Wireless stimulation, response of
plant to, 1 76
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